anticipation//made: i want to run a marathon

it's vacaaaation, thank goodness!! the last two weeks flew by and were a little bit stressful, so it's nice to be able to unwind and not think about lesson planning and hyperactive 13 year-olds for a few days. several of the assistants went out to dinner this week - our last time out together before the holiday (sniff sniff). it was a tres cute restaurant, the waiter for sure got a kick out of our anglophone-ness...it just seems that we always add to the atmosphere wherever we go...aka we laugh. a lot. we also complied a mixed CD for Manu (tasse et glace guy) for his christmas present - it was appropriately entitled "the t et g groupies," and Andrea, Hannah, Kate, Mandy, Sophie and I all put on 2-3 songs for the cafe. i would probably have shriveled up and died without tasse; it is my happiness here. all love.

for the holiday i'll be traveling with amy, one of my nearest and dearest from AU. about a month and a half ago, i booked us a hotel and tickets for tunis, tunisia - since we were both going to be staying over here for the holidays, we decided to travel somewhere that doesnt celebrate christmas, so that we (hopefully) won't feel homesick. so i've been looking forward to this trip for quite a while; my teachers are super excited for me, it's going to be warm(er) there, it's my first trip to africa, etc etc, when i receive an email from amy. as of mid-last week, she still hadnt received her carte de sejour (residency card - i got mine 2-3 weeks ago), which allows her to come back into france, since her long stay visa will have expired before she leaves on vacation....it's complicated, but should have been easily fixed by either traveling with her recipassee (document saying that the carte is in progress; i had mine since oct) - which apparently she didnt have - or by getting an extension on her visa - which was apparently a difficult thing to do at her prefecture. so suddenly my plans for the holiday were thrown into question since amy wasnt sure if she would be able to take care of her documentation to be able to travel legally...so basically i spent the better part of last week trying to convince her that everything would work out and refelcting on whether or not tunis would be safe enough for me to go there alone. i mean, i already had a ticket, right?? well happily - and at the very last minute - amy sent me an sms saying that her papers were in order and she was good to go. so we leave tomorrow afternoon from paris CDG and come back on the 31st. I can't wait!!

doom and gloom regarding the unsavory thought of spending christmas in the hexagon (no offense), classes were also super annoying the last few days, what with the kids' ants-in-the-pants anticipation of vacation. i do not doubt that i was at least as excited this friday to be off school as my students were; quite likely i was more. for all the priceless moments there are in class, i still dread going to school everyday. it's fine - at least i was lucky enough to figure out im not a teacher while living in france, with it's copious paid holidays and good health care system - but i cant wait to have a job that i actually like again. im thinking about studying business-y things...i want to plan/organize/manage things, not stare at uninterested faces for hours on end.

the application for the peace corps is coming along, but i have to get fingerprinted after vacation for my file. what the heck, why not - i mean, i've already filled out every other kind of form,taken x-rays, so fingerprints should be a breeze....riiiight...

i dont know if i already mentioned it, but i signed up for a marathon! in april! in austria! dont ask me why or how i came to make that decision, but kate, a fellow assistant, said that she was doing it and that i should too, and that was pretty much all it took. peer pressure just barely. yikes. in any event, i think it will be good for me. granted, im not much of a runner - this spring for cross training i got myself up to running about 3 miles non-stop, but i hated every minute of it - but it's been growing on me since i started running more frequently last month. my ankles and knee dont love it, but im building up muscles for better support and ive been trying to watch my technique so im not putting unwarranted stress on my joints. ive already built up to running for an hour with just 3-4 min walking in the middle, so with several months to read up on the finer points of completing a marathon, training, and winning the mind-over-matter battle, im sure that i will cross the finish line, which is all i want to do. i dont care too much about the time; our mantra is "if katie holmes can do it" (she recently ran the NY marathon in over 5 hours). anyway, it's something to do with all this free time, and it will be a fun trip at the end of this teaching gig, since the girls that arent running promised to come along and cheer us on, beers and pastries in hand.


so yeah, this is actually shaping up to be one of the best holiday seasons ever, from thanksgiving and our great dinner to xmas in tunis with amy to new years in paris. and that just keeps getting better and better - me and amy, plus tanya (finally got her visa from russia to france sorted out), and now mandy, christine and nicholas!! blanche nuit the 31st, holidays with my favorite ppl in my favorite city...now just cross your fingers our flights dont get canceled and that the hotel in tunis isnt sketch...a bientot!! joyeuses fetes a tout le monde!

grenoble winter wonderland

grenoooooble marche de noel rocks my socks!!
oh, and last weekend we went to Lyon to see the Fete de Lumiere, craziness in the streets (4 mil visitors over the weekend), stayed out dancing on a boat til 5am, then caught a train back to valence at 7h30...but the pix are not so awesome. lo siento.


Place Victor Hugo

Snow Covered Mountains!!

Troll Haus, it's become something of a tradition for us

Kate, Mandy and Hannah with books galore!

bah humbug scrooge mcgrinchy

im not huge on the holidays, but i do always love shopping at night with all the lights in the trees and the smell of snow in the air, right? but since im not at home, not with my usual crew, it's been a bit harder to find the holiday spirit - until this week, anyway. the christmas lessons rolled out in full force - super fun word scrambles, crosswords, guessing games, 'how did you feel when you found out santa wasnt real' annnnnd mariah carey. thats right, no jingle bells for my kids, we're listening to "All i want to christmas is yoooooou' and filling in missing lyrics. aka ive listened to that song about 30 times this week. heh. but it's been fun - the guys are all like "dude this song it too girly" and the girls are all "ooh elle chante trop bien" and they sing along. my 3e class yesterday took the cake, though. after a rather dismal session last week - long story short i thought i wasnt working with them, but then got an email the morning before class that i needed to talk about ALL 50 STATES, wft?, they didnt really like my little "did you know?" fun facts, whatever, and the teacher was like "umm no. that was not good." oops - i figured the song would be fun and then we could play a game or something, rather than lecturing "Christmas traditions in the US." oh my god. the guys started dancing in their seats and pretending to sing...i couldnt help but crack up, which of course egged them on even more...it was awesome.

my 4e sang "we wish you a merry christmas" to me, that was charming...

i had the MOST interesting/awesome teacher dinner with the crew from Jean Zay, my wonderful school on friday. Chantal's boyfriend, Michael, lives most of the time in London (he's english - a banker/chef/acupuncturist), so the first thing he said when he picked me up was that i could tell him how i really felt about living in france...although i vent a lot with the assistants, so i didnt have too much to say - i think he was mildly disappointed! haha, it was awesome though - he cooked this wonderful chinese dinner and the food just kept coming - spring rolls with lettuce and rice paper to wrap around the outside so as not to muss up your fingers, sauteed veggies and cashews (of course i took a lot of smack for being a veg, as usual, but he said that next time he'd make me tofu!!), grilled shrimp, beef and veggies, chicken and veggies, and a huuuge fruit plate with oranges, chinese grapefruit, lychees, and some other chinese fruit - and christmas cookies, baked by yours truly. it was a really nice evening, lots of laughing, violin music grace a Manon, chantal's daughter (6 yrs old, bilingual, cutest kid ever), and michael's weird super-sarcastic-to-the-point-of-being-bitter humor....fun times.

and of course, mandy and i baked cookies and rocked the christmas carols on thursday. i swear, france + mandy is turning me tres domestic. we had a mini-adventure baking chez moi, converting her american recipe into metric and ad libbing the baking of the sugar cookies - theres only one cookie sheet in my house, so we used a bunch of tart pans as well. they tasted good, but we shoulda looked for green and red sprinkles...oh well. they were still loved by the teachers in all my schools!

and in other news, my recruiter for the Peace Corps called on thurs, too, so thats moving along. we'll see what happens...sadly i dont really have a great background for enviro/health stuff, which is what i would like to do, since thats what im thinking about for grad school/real life, but it's understandable. the fact that im cpr certified helps in the health dept (although honestly, that might be expired, but i would renew it anyway once im back in the states) funnily enough she said that im a good candidate...for teaching...and asked if she could add that to my preferences. my desire to do the PC outweighed my daily dread of the classroom, and i said yes, i'll do whatever you want. urgh.

it's almost vacation!!!!

on how kids can be priceless

today i began teaching christmas. most likely by this time next week i will have begun to detest it unless wonderful moments like this one occur frequently: i was talking about christmas in the states, and a girl asked if people put out les creches. i said yes, those that celebrate christmas as a religious holiday put up a manger, writing the vocab on the board. "Quoi?! tu manges de Jesus aux Etats-Unis??" manger (fr) = to eat. i almost peed myself.

lumiere en fete

i loooove these crazy trees, and with the lights they're even more chouette!

fireworks WITH OPERA (maria callas) = love france

red light district

so the christmas decorations have been going up slowly for at least the last 3 weeks here in valence, but im going to write it off as cozy cheerfulness rather than obnoxious commercialism. tomorrow is our "fete de lumiere," followed next weekend by the renowned fete in Lyon, which is to say that for the last 10 days, some intense light installations have been going up, including huge tube-like trees and towering calla-lily-ish flowers (pix to follow in a few days)...valance leaves it's christmas lights up in the streets year-round, but tonight was the first night that i saw most of them turned on, and i have to say there's something about the white icicle lights that will never get old. it's just more cheerful with them up! white lights aside, though, there are some superb valence specialties, particularly the cute little christmas trees that shopkeepers have set up outside their stores (apparently only the members of some "valence assoc" put up the trees; tasse et glace isnt part of this assoc, hence no xmas tree, but i think im going to bring emmanuel a christmas ornament for his moss ball anyway) annd the red-paper-covered streetlights. seriously, our charming little rues have been transformed into a red-light district, and the effect is more creepy than christmas. ooh how i love me some valence. this evening mandy and i stumbled upon this very...progressive performance art installation in a square next to the church and the valence museum (i didnt know until tonight that we had a museum. learn something new everyday, non?). freaky noises, huge moving light fixtures, a fountain within which a woman was sweeping water, film projections onto the side of the museum, guys "unpainting" a painting...very interesting. and creepy. and awesome. two points for valence. oh, and add a point for my ghetto gare: its christmas decos consist of super tacky red tube lights strung haphazardly across the doorway and white and blue triangle trees in the driveway. trop moche.

vraiment?

sometimes i hate this job...like this morning, i was up at 6h15 to be to school a bit before 8h, because Emily told me "oh yah, come for sure, the kids would love to work with you." but this morning she was all, "oh desolee, we're a bit behind (ps. that was the reason i didnt work with them LAST week), can you come next week instead?" you couldnt send an email, emily, really? hers was the only class i was suppose to work with today, so i had to grit my teeth and force a smile as i said "oui,oui, pas de probleme." bc i wake up at disgustingly early hours and walk in the driving wind only to be turned out again for fun. yup. right. i know im not here to save the world and that this job is mostly a joke, but really, a little politesse/professionalism would be appreciated. it's just more considerate.

i want harry potter #7, yerba, bikram and a new camera. and i kinda want it to be april already.

officially ready to be a housewife

i am growing soo much here in france. i am, like, totally ready to be a housewife! oh my god! why? because thanksgiving is awesome and rocks my socks (but only here in la france, chez moi i could generally care less about football and turkeys).

so of course teaching about turkey day is obligatoire for us assistants, since it's something super typical-american. again my Jean Zay angels were the most interested, or at least the most receptive to my lessons, which consist of a brief history, vocab, and various games. we played hangman with thanksgiving words and i have never seen such excitement. they were shouting cornucopia and wampanoag like nobody's business! they think pumpkin pie and stuffing are nasty ideas, that black friday sounds divine, and were very concerned about my being away from home on the holiday. one girl was asked if i felt funny...i was confused, and she elaborated "well, you must be very sad, being here instead. but maybe you can have a party with some of your friends to feel better?" and she breathed a sigh of relief when i said that in fact a bunch of us were going to cook together on saturday. thanksgiving day i had 2 classes to teach, and then i got to chaperone a trip to the cinema to see "North by Northwest," so that made up for having to work on the holiday.

as for our american-in-france turkey day....it was pretty much the best thing ever. (how many times have i said that?) the idea was conceived in a bar in strasbourg, when will, mandy and i were waxing nostalgic about what we would do fend off homesickness during the holidays, and we decided that we ought to have an get-together for the americans. luckily mandy's renters were all too willing to let her host, and we put together the invite-list, with 6 of us assistants, plus Sophie (mandy's renter), in attendance.

sat morning i work up at the crack of dawn, aka 8am, to go for a run before heading to the market. Bruno, my renter, was already up and working and said i was crazy for getting up so early, and laughed when i explained that it was bc we'd be eating a ton for our belated thanksgiving celebration. when i left the house at 10am, isabelle and bruno were amused to see me dressed up for a change (new shoes!! usually they only see me on the weekend = cords and tee shirts), and wished me a happy thxgiving. i met mandy in town to buy fresh veggies, flowers and some kind of poultry. i thought it was pretty hilarious that i, the vegetarian, was a constant presence in the search for a turkey (the french eat turkey for noel, so no luck finding it in the stores this early)/chicken...and of course in france they leave everything attached, so we had to ask the lady to chop the head off (BERK!!) - and i (!!) pulled out the innards (heart, gizzard, liver, kidneys) at home!!! omg. it was like AP bio all over again...and awesome. of course before going back to mandy's to cook we had to stop at t et g for some holiday coffee and consultation on the finer points of cooking a bird. what can i say? theres no time to learn how to host thanksgiving like when youre living in france, non?

so we prepped the bird, mandy buttered it up, and popped it in the oven...all the while, her renters were being super sweet - they cleaned the apartment, brought in extra an table and some chairs, candles...dominique, who's starting a new career as a chef, helped me slice the mushrooms (i made salad with roasted FRESH walnuts - aka, cracked all those buggers open myself, blue cheese and pears, classic, as well as sauteed mushrooms and green beans), and sophie took copious notes on the traditions, history, and food of thanksgiving. and Webby, the cat, kept a watchful eye on the chicken.

so the bulk of the afternoon was spent in the kitchen, as per the best way to spend any dinner party...kelly came over around 14h, and mary and andrea came over around 16h30...we had warned sophie not to eat lunch, and she was super cute and kept asking when we were going to eat...finally around 17h everything was prepped and we had our apero (muscat), and then piled all the food onto the table and served buffet-style. we did a pretty good
job - we had the chicken ("tastes like turkey!"), stuffing (some cooked in the bird, the rest just veg-friendly), green bean casserole, ocean spray canned cranberry sauce, my veggies, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggie quiche, corn bread, baguette...wine...fromage...apple pie, tarte au citron, vanilla bean ice cream...eating a real, homemade meal was exceptional, and eating with a bunch of great friends (oh, will finally dragged his butt over from romans around 17h30) and music a la andrea was even better.

the evening stretched out until midnight, since we HAD to watch a movie, since there was no football. kelly and will had to leave early to catch trains home, loaded up with leftovers, but the rest of us hung out and watched "Love Actually" to get into the holiday spirit. super fun, super proud that i co-hosted a successful thanksgiving far away from home, and super excited that i have housewife potential. i mean, i pulled that nastiness out of the chicken like nobody's business!

only in the hexagon

the past week has been fun and games and everything en greve. for the most part, that means the trains and the paris metro have been running at significantly reduced rates, but the teachers marched against the suppression of posts next year, university students are outraged at the idea of paying for their education, and the tabac owners protested for the right to smoke (France is going smoke-free 1 Jan).

A Paris, les buralistes défilent pour l'assouplissement de la loi sur l'interdiction de fumer dans les lieux publics
LEMONDE.FR | 21.11.07

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Nicolas Sarkozy ne s'exprimera pas sur le pouvoir d'achat avant la fin de la grève
LEMONDE.FR | 22.11.07

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Pour l'UNEF, "la ministre doit apporter des réponses" aux revendications des étudiants
LEMONDE.FR | 22.11.07

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if you need a reason as to why youre here...epanouissement

travels aside, my day-to-day life here is kinda interesting, i suppose, but honestly, i dont know where the last two months have gone. each day drags in the morning, yet it's over so quickly, especially now that darkness drops in by 18h or so...

i still have not really fallen into a daily rhythm, so it's hard to talk about 'a day in the life' for me. one of the biggest frustrations the first month was that my teachers, while very friendly, were not all that helpful in regards to planning my lessons. they know that im not a teacher and that i ahe no prior experience, but they were all just like "do whatever you want!" which im sure thay thought was what i wanted to hear - but in fact that was the exact opposite of what i needed! the levels of each section vary enormously, and in some of the schools i see different sections every week. although im only in the schools for about 12 hours/week, i spend at least 2 hours a day musing over what i can do with them that interesting and educational and off-beat and wishing for some consistency.

VALERY: 4 groups of new faces every week -> last week, after coming back from the holiday, i put my foot down, though, and insisted that the teachers either give me the same group for a few weeks in a row, so that i can actually recognize the kids and make some progress, or else be more forthcoming with what they're working on and how i can better support their lesson plans. and it's working - ive actually gotten some emails with ideas and i think ive succeeded in having at least on section every week from now until the christmas break. i mean, one day last week a student that i vaguely recognized said 'Hello!' to me on the bus and i had no idea what school she was from! it was a little awkward, and it took me 2 days to place her as a student from Valery.the teachers are very easy to talk to - this morning i had a good talk with Olivier, another young teacher that i'll start working with in the next few weeks - but they arent very strict in the classroom, so im plagued with students that talk all through class, even when the teacher is there, which is unfortunate, because there are always at least a handful of students that are really interested.

ZAY: slice of heaven -> ultimately it's interesting to see the classroom from the teacher's point of view, and i understand now how disheartening it can be to see kids that understand the lesson but are too shy to speak up and how exhausting it is to try to quiet the chatterboxes. another challenge is that my kids at Zay are in the "European" program, which means they have 5 hours of english/week, rather than just 3 - and even my youngest there, the 5e (12 years old) are more advanced than the 3e (15 yrs) at Valery! Zay is pretty much my fave - the teachers are nice (i had dinner with 2 of them right before Toussaint) and give me lesson ideas and the kids are polite and actually speak english! luckily i work there tues/wed, so it gives me a much needed boost midway through the week and reminds me that some of my students care about what im doing and are actually making the most of my time! my lessons with this school don't always work in the other schools, since i can do more advanced things - i mean, i can prep something for the 5es here and use it with the 3e at Valery... this week was awesome. i did DC monument stuff with the 5e, just 2 articles about the Lincoln and Washington monuments, since im a little homesick (been watching the west wing in french, which is enough to make anyone want to be in the district) and the kids were SO EXCITED about each reading a paragraph! and they asked great vocab questions and we worked on numbers (like the hard ones, like 15,506 and stuff) and decimals and all that. it was great. and the next day, with the 4e, i did NYS stuff - a map, a crossword and a reading about the statue of liberty - as they were walking into the room, they were already speaking english and asking to read. which also looked great for me, since i was in there talking to another english teacher! so yah, Zay makes me happy all-around.

that all being said, i just got back from my classes at Valery, and i had a lot of fun today. i had 6e and 5e, and they were pretty decent...we did some thanksgiving activities and they got really into it and i just got to joke around the whole time. here you eat turkey for noel, so they thought thanksgiving was christmas...they kept getting sidetracked with questions about me and my lotus tattoo, but ive decided as long as they speak in english i dont really care what we talk about...the lesson was to divide vocab words into people, places and foods, but there were also trick words that didnt fit into any category, ie thankful - but i totally had a semi-philosophical conversation with a girl who wanted to put thankful as a place, since your sentiments are in your heart and mind...it was too cute. others put turkey as a place, since they were thinking of the country, which i thought was generally fantastic. with another section i just did introduction questions; they were psyched with the, like, 4 photos i brought in (i havent brought pix to my other classes, i dunno why - they love it!) - they'd been asking if my "sister that has 18 years has the same face as me" (brittness! they like you since youre kinda the same-ish age!) and get this. when the groups switched (i had each half for 25 min),they were so excited to tell the teacher about me that even 2 kids that have never spoken voluntarily wouldnt stop talking. amazing. everyone asked when i was going to work with them again...so right now im feeling good about teaching....but it still gives me butterflies before each class....

of course im not really just teaching, even though it feels like im always thinking about it...one of my faves is going for tea at tasse et glace a few times a week. i usually meet mandy, since we're joined at the hip apparently, or i run into the other assistants, who have all fallen in love with t et g as well. i miss the MT insanity, but it's such an easy little pleasure to go for a tea or cappuccino (really, it's the only place that doesnt wreck a cap but doing burnt coffee with a spoon of foam) and just chat or read...apparently the owner, emmanuel, thought i was english (score!) and knows me as"the one that reads." accurate. every time we travel, i seek out the best coffee joint - found one in the 'bourg that i love, as well as one in Kehl, Germany....and i love those coffee machines in the gares and at school like nothing else. really. last week i had 1h30 between classes, and since the school is near the train station, i almost went there just to get my cheap ghetto coffee. but i resisted the urge, it seemed too weird.

the wind here is more intense than i ever thought possible. i have wind-swept hair and pink cheeks permanently. this morning i was waiting for the bus, watching some birds trying to fly into the wind and they couldnt. this afternoon walking home, the wind knocked me over a bit. went out for lunch and i was still shivering when we left; it's that kind of in-your-bones cold. and it's just nov. but i like to find the silver lining when i can, and at least walking in the wind is a double workout! after a month of tired/lazy/scared of getting lost, ive finally started running and the wind makes that super intense, too. i need a fleece headband...but i have my awesome coldgear pants that are the most comfortable amazingness ever and there are 5 nice hills behind my house and flat roads that are fairly country-ish, so i can make kind of a star-shaped tour in an hour and by then my ankles are screaming and im back home! so that works well...as for the bike that i bought, well...it's in the garage. valence is kinda too small to take the bike out and have to find somewhere to lock it up (i can walk anywhere i need in under 30 min), and i havent looked for good roads to just ride for exercise, but my goal is to do that before winter sets in. but it will be good to have in the spring, and in life in general.

living in other houses that arent my own is not my favorite thing, although the free wifi is pretty nice...so my mantra is find a job toute de suite that allows me to live sans roommates. it's not that they're not nice - they are, although i rarely talk to them - but theres just a persistant feeling of unease...it was the same in paris: nice people, nice set-up, but it's not mine. they think im funny bc i dont like to cook and just make soup and vegetables everyday...whatever. i watch the news every night since i cant seem to find the time to read the paper anymore (i think my attn span has become shorter over here) and sometimes i watch the shows that come on afterwards...mtv in french is hilarious and good for learning slang...i found the west wing dubbed, which made me smile for 2 days, and the other night Freaky Friday "Dans le peau de ma mere" was on. looooooooove it. i still like the excuse that watching tv is good for my listening comp, but it's true! i think my french is getting better, i def feel comfortable speaking almost all the time, and ive learned more random vocab..i mean, it's understanding weird accents and kids that speak really poorly, really quickly, and learning words like "courge" (bone marrow) and "meduse" (jellyfish) that equal fluent, you know? it's also encouraging when people tell me that i speak well and express their happiness/surprise that an american would take the time to learn another language and PREFER to speak french rather than english. my kids like helping my pronunciation, too (i got a whole tutorial on how i need to role the "r" in "greve"). i think it's kinda encouraging for them to see that i make mistakes sometimes too, but that learning another language isnt impossible. i mean, sometimes i want to crawl under the table when i hear the teachers speaking english, it's that wrong...and ive learned not to mind when they mimic the american accent. the first time that happened i was annoyed and thought the girl was mocking me, but now i get that it actually is different - and difficult - for them.

what else? i dunno...im reading in french more...trying not to worry too much about what im going to do this summer...enjoying free time and goofing around with the other assistants...window-shopping for new shoes...generally i think it's pretty cool what im doing, at least the whole becoming french thing, and i love just savoring the experience and meeting people and noticing the little differences between life here and life in paris and life in the district. i need to go to the movies. i want to take a class (writing, drawing, dance...whatever. now that i have money, i just need to be decisive). i want to ride my bike!

oh yah, and i started working in the wine store in Tain, with Georges. i'll post about that later on, if it actually works out...

manging cheese in the CH

jet-setter that ive become, this weekend mandy and i swung out to la suisse to see le suisse, avant son depart pour les etats unis. translation: we went to see ivan's town, Lausanne (olympic capital), before he peaces out on the 21st to go sell wine on long island. ivan, in case i havent mentioned him yet, worked for Georges, our wine man in Tains, and we've hung out with him a few times. he's swiss-american - his dad is from the Bronx, so he speaks perfect english (and we sadly default into english most of the time with him), and he's our age, chill, and very generously invited us to see him before he left. of course we couldnt pass up a local contact, so we went on yet another trip, despite the fact that vacation just ended.

mandy almost missed our 8h15 train from valence sat morning, but luckily she ran onto the platform just in time, and we settled in for the 3-hour ride through the mountains to geneva. it has just turned cold enough that there is a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains. i was glued to the window, the sun half-whiting out my view, the scenery was that stunning. i never had real mountains in my life, with the exception of our trip this spring to NM, and i think that this might have to be a more permanent part of my life. beautiful.

sadly, once we passed the french alps and reached geneva, the weather turned grey and drizzly. Lausanne (30 min from geneva) sits on Lac Lemans (Lake Geneva), but we didnt have much of a view, since it was too hazy.

Nevertheless, mandy and i took to the streets, found a pizza joint for lunch - and made friends yet again with the italian servers. this time was more intense than our previous random friend stories, bc basically the whole place knew that we were the beautiful american english teachers, the servers kept talking to us in italian even though they spoke french,...and i 'married' our server. you know, these things happen. Ivan met us downtown and gave us a brief insiders' tour: the little old shopping streets, gaufres (waffles, local specialty), a cathedral overlooking the city, the special clock that tells the story of how the Swiss chased out the Swiss-Germans back in the day (every hour, on the hour, it tells the story and little mechanical dolls act it out - a fave for the local enfants, including Ivan when he was younger). freezing from the rain, we opted to hole up in a pub and watch the liverpool-fulham football game. there we also met denton (sp?), another american (yaay Pittsburgh) who works in the wine biz. Denton actually worked for the same firm that Ivan's going to work for on Long Island before he transferred over here in Feb. He's cool.

then it was fondue dinner. my first time with fondue - again, typical suisse fare - but i have to say, im not a huge fan. buuut dinner was fantastic. first, the guys picked a great, light white wine that went well with the fromage (benefits of boys that know what theyre doing) AND it was senior dance party night or something - we dubbed it "bouge ta booty" night - for real, the 70+ population was out in full force, dancing to really really BAD the techno-latino-polka infusion that senor guapisimo with the silk shirt was playing on the keyboard...omg, we died laughing. i mean, as soon as we arrived and saw the disco ball and the mic set-up, and the old folks started wandering in, some in pairs, some solo but hopeful, all dressed up and drinking their Perrier, we knew we were in for a treat. incredible. ivan tried to incite mandy and denton to bust it out on the dance floor, and they were almost convinced, but alas, none of us had had enough to drink...so instead we were entertained by the atmosphere for a while, then peaced out to find crowds more our age.

ivan led us to a few local hangouts, and mandy and i had to fight the guys to let us pay for their drinks - denton had bought dinner, ivan has bought us i dont know how many rounds, but they're very insistent on the whole gentleman thing! it's crazy talk! my excuse for paying was that ivan's moving to the states, where us liberal, feminist-minded girls like to pay too...but really, even good ol' american denton showed more class than ive ever seen.. funniest moment for me: we were leaving the pub to go to dinner, and i grabbed my jacket and put it on my stool while i was putting on my scarf. denton takes my jacket from me, and im all like "no dude, thats my coat" - thinking he'd thought i was handing him his coat, but he was taking it to put it on for me! he just smirked and i laughed...and then he pulled out my chair and everything at the restaurant. quelle classe! soo, long story short, it was yet another wonderful night, mandy and i just in awe of how lucky we've been to keep running into fantastic, amazingly friendly people. hopefully i'll see ivan in the states sometime, and who knows, we might go visit denton in suisse again!
on the way home we had an hour stop in geneve, so we wandered to the lake to see the jette d'eau...i'll have to come back to see geneve for real, now that ive passed through it twice without really stopping...and we found a tea stand in the lausanne gare that had tea a emporter! really, that is one american thing that i cant find fault with. when it's cold outside, you should be always be able to take 12 oz of warmth with you.

gare - colline - radiographie: toussaint bis

the second half of the toussaint holiday was spent in lyon, the third largest city in france, aka the paris of the south. i loved it.

so the day after will peaced out, mandy and i bid adieu to the 'bourg and headed to Belfort, a small town in between the 'bourg and lyon, where we were planning to spend the night and taste the local specialty, a raspberry tart thingy. however, we failed to connect the date - 1 nov, toussaint - and the french style of totally shutting down for the day - which translated to: we arrived in belfort, walked (it was more of a hike, but it was a nice day, so thats fine) out to the hostel, only to find the reception was empty. they knew we were coming around noon, but failed to mention that the desk was closed during the day, so our options were either hang out in the sketch hostel (it was in a foyer de jeunes travailleurs = less than awesome anyway) until 16h or catch a train to lyon. we opted for the latter, even though that meant that we had to wait until 18h45 for the next train. soo we spent all saints day in a coffee shop, a kebab joint and in the gare, drinking instant cappuccinos. (love those things, so much happiness for 1E) it wasnt that bad, though - we caught up on our journals, wrote postcards and made friends with some old dudes in the kabab place. i love our random friendly encounters! in the month that ive been here, ive chatted with more locals all over the place than i did during the entire semester i was in paris. it's the little things that make this stay totally worthwhile - and the compliments on my french and the shocked faces when they learn that we're AMERICANS speaking french, no less!

so we finally arrived in lyon and decided to splurge on a taxi, since it was late and we didnt know too much about finding the hostel from the metro. the ride was beautiful - lyon is situated between the Rhone and the Saone, and all the old buildings were lit up and magical at night. i instantly fell in love.

the hostel was fine, although the girl that checked us in was pretty rude and there wasnt much hot water...but it's located in the vieille ville, atop a steep hill, with an amazing view of the city.
we ran into another eng assistant, Matt, that we'd met at orientation - he works in Privas, a tiny town in the Ardeche, but was also vacationing in Lyon, so it was nice to swap teaching stories with him.

sooo lyon was chill - on friday, mandy and i walked pretty much all over the city, starting with a market that was open everyday and was perfection - minus the shockingly revolting pigs' heads that were just hanging for sale in the stalls and the full chickens, heads and tail feathers included. we bought fresh groceries nearly everyday and either cooked at the hostel or picnicked. we also made friends with the dried-fruit-tapendae vendor (he gave us moroccan candies bc we're cool) and a wine maker from St.Emillion, near bordeaux. friday afternoon we met guiliana at the gare and went out for dinner and drinks in the vieille ville. and trekked up our hill. sat was chill (guili taked forever to get ready, but we love her anyway!): a walk in the old town, more markets (books!), big city shopping (H&M, Zara, all love), chocolate shops and italian cooking, grace a guili. that night we met some other italian guys in the hostel and just stayed in, chatting with them. sunday was grey and quiet, but the musees were open, so after picnicking in a park and playing on a jungle gym (me), we checked out the Musee des Tissus et Arts Decoratifs (lyon was a major player in the french silk industry) and le Musee des Beaux Arts (gratuit!). i went for a walk to see the city lights at night, guili cooked for us again, and then one of her friends from grenoble, an arabic assistant from syria, met us at the hostel and we chilled and talked french lit.

monday was the dreaded visite medicale day, but first mandy and i went to check out the roman ruins and a cathedral (known locally as the upside-down elephant) that were near the hostel. i never received the convocation from my school, but i knew that all the other valence kids had their visites, so on friday mandy and i found the office and i confirmed that i was in the system and had my visite on monday, as well (i guess my letter got lost in the mail or something...*tear*) so there was a mini Drome reunion party of all the assistants not from the EU - americans, new zealanders, canadians, mexicans, fun times. we were in and out very quickly, surprisingly, since everything else seems to take forever here...the exam consisted of eyes, height, weight, fam history of diabetes, vaccination record, breathing/pulse, and ... the mysterious x-ray. naked. ugh. i have no clue what they were looking for, the doctor hardly glanced at it for more than 5 seconds. but it was random and now i have a funny souvenir. and it's totally hanging on my wall, never mind whether it's creepy or not.

so will was part of the reunion, and the three of us (guili had taken a train back to grenoble that morning) separated from the rest of the group, who were being indecisive about getting food or shopping, and went to grab quiches and hang in a park. will busted out his guitar and we entertained some french kids with johnny cash, green day, oasis...and of course some improv en francais, a propos de la visite medicale. it was probably the highlight of the entire trip, and i almost peed my pants laughing at, like, three points. the train to valence was super crowded, but will and i managed to sneak into a first class cabin (!) and watch the first half of "Superbad" on his laptop. wonderfulness comes in the little things.

soo toussaint traveling was good times, internet withdrawl, doctors, markets, and randomness. the best kind of traveling!

Roule ma poule! toussaint pt. uno

whenever i start to complain about how im not a fan of teaching, just remind me that for the year i have the sweetest deal - 5 weeks of work, 10-14 days of paid vacation - and i'll shut up.

for Toussiant (all saints day) i traveled to Stasbourg and Lyon. mandy and i were together the whole trip; will joined us on the leg to the 'bourg (sunday til wed) and guiliana met us in Lyon (fri to mon). Monday afternoon there was an assistant party at the ANAEM office in Lyon, as we (americains, canadienne, nouveau zelandienne?, mexicaine) all had to pass a medical exam for our cartes de sejour. funtimes - seriously.

my lovelies in strasbourg. we're v. mature.

STRASBOURG...is too charming for words. mandy and i were too girly for our own good, cooing "ooh thats soo cuute" every other second. we came close to driving will away, but he knows that we rock...anyway, mandy and i took the train to strasbourg from valence on sunday, 29 oct - about a 6h trip, with a transfer in lyon. ooph. but we had cute (ugh, see? bad habit!) cabin seats and got a lot of reading and journaling done, and of course we enjoyed some AWEsome vending machine cappuccinos in the gare in lyon (no joke, that instant coffee is some of the best stuff around, unless you like the taste of burn a la french roast)Will met us in strasbourg, since he was coming in from Paris, where he'd been visiting friends, and we walked out to our hostel, which was just a few minutes from the gare. the hostel was surprisingly nice for 20E/night - we had a private, 3-bed room (i got to play summer camp in the top bunk) with a shower and really good croissants for breakfast, AND the hostel was very close to the center of the city. we went out for dinner and then just chilled in the hostel, since theres not much open on sundays.

the three of us make for very chill tourists - we were happy to just wander and take pictures, especially since we were all trying to be good about not spending money (we didnt realize that we'd been paid, since none of our schools had told us anything before the break)...we visited the cathedral de Notre Dame and its astrological clock (it's hundred of years old, but the pieces still move on the hour and at noon a rooster crows and the saints go for a walk), la petite france, le musee alsacien (bc it was free. omg, it was the never-ending museum, i kid you not. v cool bc it was in a reconstructed Alsacian house and it was free, but it just kept going and going...we did see some sweet, typical hats and fireplaces, though.), a lot of beautiful canals and bridges, some art galleries...there was a lot of coffee and people-watching, yummy cheese from the best cheese shop ever - complete with an owner that had those curly-cue handlebar mustaches. on tuesday, we toured the Kronenbourg facility and got to taste a bunch of beer, including nice, light girly ones for me and mandy. that afternoon we also met Brett, another american who's studying in Aix - he was traveling alone during the holiday, so we took him under our wing, taught him some key french phrases and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. it was good timing, since will was in desperate need of some manlove. dinner that night was baguette, cheese and a bottle of gewürztraminer by the river - absolute perfection. if there had been accordion music,we would have been a movie. then we went back to the creepy tunnel we'd found that morning - it's this long covered bridge that overlooks the river Ile, but the inside is used as some kind of storage facility for decrepit church statues or something. i couldnt get any good pix bc the lighting was so strange and my camera is a piece of poop, but trust me, it was something out of a low-budget horror flick = great.

wednesday will left us to go dog-sit in paris (ooh paris), but first we took a nice little stroll over to germany. ya know, since it's there. it wasnt too far from the metro, just an interminable bridge over the Rhone. once we got there, though, we felt a little bit of culture shock. unlike strasbourg, where everything was bilingual (and thats not counting the english that permeates everything), Kehl was seulement allemand. or at least, the shops that we visited were. so we floundered our way through ordering coffees (very good, btw) and buying post cards and then we headed back to france. the best part of my german experience was the merry-go-round thingy that was in the middle of the street, that i of course had to play on. will pushed me around and then i pretty much fell off on my face. classy.

once we were without the boy, mandy and i just aww cute'd it up, grabbed tea in THE BEST COFFEESHOP ever (it was jeanette et les cycleurs ou qqch comme ca) - oh! and the 'bourg has the best bikes ever, they are all vintage and lovely and i want one, but my bike is modern. *le sigh* - and went to the movies since it was cold. we saw "le coeur des hommes 2" a manlove comedy, which is to say it was a chick flick for guys. i havent seen the first installation, but judging by the sequel, im not feeling too pressed to do so. hmm, what else? we had trick-or-treaters in our restaurant. strasbourg is a perfect fall-halloween ghost-christmas town, and the little kids running around in their ghost costumes were priceless. for our last night in a decent hostel, we celebrated with a hair dying party - im back to dark, but not nearly dark enough, so there will have to be an encore tres bientot. mandy's, like, professional with the hair-coloring procedure.

view from the top of the creepy covered bridge. too wonderful.

chercher le bonheur

i decided to take this year off from school in order to have some time to reflect on what i want to do in grad school and discover what direction im heading in for the next few years...but frankly, ive been here for almost a month and ive half-completed the application for the Peace Corps and thats about it. i am just uncomfortably undecided - but maybe the fact that i keep finding things that im interested to see in France (ie film festival in Belfort this summer) and things id be willing to do to stay here (start looking for an au pair job, at least one that would last the summer) is indicative of what i want: i want to learn to live in the moment and i want to un-learn the feeling that i have to compete my studies in the next three years and that i have to be locked on a career path in the states by the time im 24. life is short, ive not done all that much yet, and i want to see everything.

hanging out with george, the wine guy, is like having meditations on life once a week. he's awesome: he has a good business and his own vineyard, but he's not consumed by his work. he travels without itineraries. he travels to meet people. i want to be like that - grenoble this weekend was perfection bc we didnt have a checklist of things to see, we wandered around (mostly in circles) and that was fine. im hoping that most of my excursions this year will be like that - small towns with fun people, big cities with aloof waiters and random conversations in bars. sitting in tains for the afternoon is great - and when i leave, after 5 hours, it doesnt feel like i wasted my time. im just happy and feel connected to a place. im not knocking my punctuality and my city-smart-averted-eyes-ipod-blaring get-where-im-going-ness, but at the same time, im realizing that i need to let my guard down a little, to just soak up good moments without letting myself become distracted by thinking about what im nOt accomplishing.


but im not saying that i should just keep renewing this teaching assistantship job, working 12 hours/week and drinking wine all the time, either. i like my absurd work ethic and i like getting my hands dirty. i want to go back to school...but i want to go back and study everything. yikes. i guess i dont like that i dont know what im passionate about. i love speaking french, but thats lame. i would like to study translation, i want to plant trees, i want to help people be healthier...and i want to know more about different cultures, i want to speak 10 languages, i want to make lattes and sell wine and teach literature and sell kitschy-cool clothing. arrrgh, i dont know what to do! come back to the states,work, pay off my loans THEN do grad school? work/peace corps/grad school? PC and masters combined? translation studies first, or enviro stuff? which aspect of the environment am i MOST concerned about? everything. trees. i dont know. nothing. i could just go back and be a manager at freaking starbucks, and sometimes that seems like the best answer. except that that would kill my soul.

im too deeply entrenched in my comfortable, middle-class, western lifestyle. i NEED to shake it up. i need other continents, i need to push myself. this is a problem: i dont know what culture shock feels like. im living in a country thats not my homeland but feels more like home than dc ever did. i need a jolt..im pretty smart, im sure i have as of yet undiscovered skills that could help improve the quality of life for someone. but what are they? i guess this all amounts to the fact that i need to volunteer more, i should read more, or i should just shut up and find a job that will ship me somewhere out of my comfort zone. ideas, anyone?

i know i need to think about these things. i want to be someone with great experiences and stories, but right now, since im in france, i also need to be someone who knows how to stop over-processing and just enjoy. right now, c'est la belle vie. there are no expectations, cool things will happen when i least expect (hallmark cheese, but so true!). but i know for sure that i do not want to see the world and get my travel visas by stringing together a series of ESL jobs in exotic locales. too many people speak english as is...

notre premiere greve

there was the greve, and vying for headline space simultaneously, the big divorce announcement: sarko and cecilia are finito. and thank goodness for her, she looked like a very unhappy lady. here are some greve articles:

Une matinée de grève très active pour les usagers et les syndicalistes
LE MONDE | 18.10.07

©

Les syndicats attendent un "message" du gouvernement, qui se dit prêt à les recevoir
LEMONDE.FR | 18.10.07
@import

url(http://medias.lemonde.fr/mmpub/css/blog.css)

Cecilia Sarkozy revient sur ses relations avec son ex-mari dans "Elle"
LEMONDE.FR | 20.10.07

©

je suis coincee!!

there are no words to describe how much i love grenoble. suffice to say, if i spend as much time there as i hope to (annnd love that it's ust 15E RT to visit), it might surpass paris as my first love in france. i mean, it has mountains. and guiliana.



mandy and i embarked on our first weekend excursion, taking the bus up to grenoble on sat morning. there was a crying kid in front of us, and the bus was basically a sauna, but it was worth it: we had the whole weekend to wander around and hang out with guiliana!! it was windy and chilly all week in valence, but the sun loved grenoble this weekend and it was warm to boot.
why i loved this weekend: we chilllllled out. lunch took at least 2 hours. primarily because the waiter was a jerkface and never brought our check, but hey! we had chosen to sit outside, so we basked in the sun and didnt worry on it because we had no real itinerary for the day. manuela, another italian assistant from Vieron, joined us, too. mmm crepes with eggplant and feta. yumm. we ambled around Place Victor Hugo and the shops there, wishing that we had money to splurge on boots and purses, but we restrained ourselves and resolved to come back at christmas time for shopping and snowy mountains. there are a TON of bulk tea stores. heaven. you can see teh mountains everywhere you turn. incredible. there was a cocker spaniel that jumped into a fountain bc he was thirsty. adorable. guiliana called us japanese girls bc we took photos every 5 minutes. whatevs, so worth it!

why i love this job: there are 200+ assistants in l'Academie de Grenoble, and we saw most of them at the stage the first week. On any given day wandering Valence, I run into one or two other assistants (and theyre fantastic) - and in grenoble it was the same. we ran into some german assistants at the Orange store when Manuela went to recharge her phone minutes and some spanish assistants were hanging out in front of Promod when we were shopping. i like our little 'yay language studies!' community.

what we were reeeally there for: the France-England rugby match (world cup quater finals). i dont know much about any sports, im not going to lie, but i know zip about rugby. (nerd that i am, i totally read up on it last week so id have an inkling of what was going on) soo will, an assistant in Romans (town just 10 min from Valence par train), and his two french neighbors, Yannick and Damien, drove up to meet us and watch the match. fantastic - we met for drinks around 19h, then guiliana and manuela went to grab warmer clothes (we were planning on watching the game outside. there we several screens being set up outside at Place St Andre). they promised to be back in an hour so we could grab dinner before the game,which started at 21h. riiiight. one hour in italian translates in 2 1/2 hours....needless to say, mandy and i set out with the boys to find something to eat without the others. kebab. mmm meat i cant eat! but it was fun, we chilled on a little street crowded with arabic shops and smelling of cumin. i ate figs. and was quite happy. then it was on to the couche tard (pub) for happy hours drinks (they do it right over here, happy hour is from 19h to 21h) and lessons in french-english cussing and commentary on how american-english sounds like we're speaking with marbles in our mouths. buut, the boys admitted that we three americans spoke french pretty well, so no worries. love it. rugby started (still pas d'italiennes), the bar burst out with la marseillaise and shouts of "allez les bleus!!" and we fell in love with rugby.

guiliana and manuela eventually returned, we left with them to eat some dinner (fries from the kebab stand), and then they left us for another bar, sans rugby, where we were to meet them later. back to the boys, and the game. it was just the best thing ever to watch the match outside with everyone going insane. especially because france led the entire time. until. the last. like, 5 minutes. seriously. then poopy england took over, and won. aieeeee, c'etait pas juste. oh zut! tears.

and then onto the Loco Mosquito, with guili and some other grenoble-based assistants. we for sure got lost about 10 times on the way there (ooh, yah, it's super close, they said....super close means 30+ minutes on foot, on some little back road. ooph), but at least the frenchy boys were outgoing and determined (they liked our little italian girls. oui, c'est comme ca) and asked for directions...omg. it was a madhouse. cute cute bar, super tiny, awesome music (lotsa reggaton and american pop), and PACKED. super hardcore. i was coinceed entre yannick et will pendant toute la nuit. so we danced until the bar closed, then the guys gave us a lift back to the hostel before they headed home. mmm long day, but awesome.

sunday we slept...ummm...not as late as we would have liked to (bfast was until 9h30 and checkout at 10)...then mandy and i wandered around a market by l'eglise St Bruno until guili was up and ready for the world. which is to say that we were ready to take the bulles (gondola) up to the bastille, overlooking the city. the weather was a little hazy, but we could still see for miles out. wonderful. photos/descend/lunch/balade en ville/petit cafe sur la terrasse/train station - where we ran into Sophie, british assistant from valence, who'd come up to visit a friend from her university and was taking the same train home. at the valence tgv stop, the guy sitting behind us passed me a "youre cute" letter. hysterical giggles...and that was the weekend!

zut zut merde

bon, cette semaine devait ete celle ou je deviens une "vraie" prof...maaaaais. ce n'est que le chaos. ok, so first, commentary on the rest of the weekend: we had a nice english-assistant bonding day on sunday - it was beautiful weather, warm and sunny, and everyone met up for a picnic in Valence before heading out to St Peray to climb up to the Chateau du Crussol. We can see the chateau from town, but it's on the opposite side of the Rhone, atop some hilly-cliff whatevers. It was a decent climb up, and the views were totally worthwhile - you can see for miles! The chateau itself is in more ruins than i expected, but we had fun running around what remains of the fortifications (it was built in the 13th century).

ive decided that at this point, i like Marcel Pagnol, my so-called bronx school, the best. the kids are just too fantastic. julia was still sick, but i went in anyway, to hang out with Emily's classes again (les 5e) ... i didnt have any lessons planned, since i never really had the chance to observe last week, and i had told julia that i would just come to watch for a bit. but emily didnt let me off the hook that easily! apparently the kids really liked me when i visited last week, and she said they'd have been disappointed if i was there but didnt work with them...so she busted out a recipe for cupcakes, and i just read through it and we worked on cooking/food vocab and understanding american accents. it was a great idea, and took the entire period, between explaining words and then having the students recall all the ingredients and utensils needed. fun times. when the second period class came in, one girl (i need to lesrn names!!) walked up to emily, whispering furiously. emily laughed and told me that the girl was upset because she wanted to bring my cake, but emily hadnt told them ahead of time that i was coming...so i promised to stop by the class next week, in case she remembered to bring me cake. too cute.

monday night i was chilling, watching some french flick on tv, when i received an email that sent me spinning - mme conte, the prof i was supposed to co-teach with at Jean Zay the next day was sick,so id have to do the class alone. merde. over the last week ive realized that i definitely did NOT bring enough stuff with me from the states, and thats not just referring to all the wonderfully warm sweaters that are now sitting in endicott. id opted not to bring a whole pile of newspaperes, etc, bc i just didnt have enough room, and i figured i could always find what i need on the internet. BUT. i still dont have computer passwords and copier codes, so i cant actually print/copy anything at this point, and it's not as easy as you would think to catch these teachers during a free period. everyone evaporates as soon as they dont have a class to teach. [side note: these schools are kinda like mini-prisons, i swear! you have to find the right door at the right section of heavy-duty fencing and ring to be let in! it's soo weird!] soo i was like oh shit, what am i going to do with these kids, have i met them yet, what does 5e mean as far as vocab??? oh lord. so i found some activities that i figured would be ok not matter what (a worksheet questionnaire thingy and some creative-conversation starters) and centered myself for the next day.

i arrived well before the start of class and begged the grumpy secretaire to make some copies for me, and headed to the teachers lounge to chill before class. i ran into some of the other english teachers, very nice, then went to my room. there was no one there. class started at 13h30. it was 13h35...ok...so i went to "la vie scolaire" where kids are supposed to go when they have a free period and asked the surveillant if my kids were there. not so much. apparently, kids can just peace out when they want if they dont have class (this was a shocking realization to someone who never even had that luxury senior year of high school!)...there were three girls in study hall, three!, from a class of 30 (i was planning on working with half the class). at first i was like, it's prob not worth it to do anything with them, but they were willing to come with me anyway, sooo the 4 of us hung out for an hour, filling in my little questionnaire and talking about pop music. whatever, it was certainly a letdown (i mean, i was dressed all teacher-like and everything!), and i didnt want to put the girls on the spot since there were so few of them and i still have no idea what im doing, but at the end of the day, they spoke more than they would have otherwise, so whatevs. i did my job.

today i screwed up - apparently i missed the memo that i was supposed to work from 8h - 10h, the 11h-noon, and i came in at 9h, which is when i thought i was going to start. oops. i was on my own again, for an hour, with some very chatty 3e (14 yrs old)...it was fine, they def spoke to much in french (i probably was too lax on my first impression and will suffer the consequences next week), but starting next week, when i have them for 2 hours, we'll b working on projects, so that will be better. it's pretty hard, preparing for a class where you dont know their level or how much they like talking, which is what ive been doing all week. so im looking forward to next week, when i'll just be helping them with writing and whatnot. and i do have more of a sense for where each level is at (i observed a 6e class today, too - like 11-12 yrs old - and they were barely grasping numbers), and im definitely going to bring articles for the olders ones, so that they stay focused and then we can have debates or something...i dunno. Pagnol teachers are younger and more fun, and seem to understand that i dont have a teaching background, so they have anticipated co-teaching for the first few sessions - i mean, im excited to work on my own with the kids, but i need to be comfortable with them first, and at Zay the teachers were like "no, no, you dont need to bring anything, no worries" so i thought id be co-teaching, but no! i just had to wing it sans fiches. ooh la. we'll see.

T.I.F.: la ou l'air sent le chocolat et on goute du vin en bon compagnie

this shall be, im sure, one of the most flat-out fantastic days ever. seriously. lets just put it out there in the most simple terms: valence is one stop away par train from a Tain l'Hermitage, a town that is renowned for its wine and chocolate. you know what youre getting for christmas. so mandy was all like lets go taste wine and a few of us assistants were planning on going, but of course everyone bailed bc they wanted to sleep in or something (the bus to Tain left at 10h45). well tant pis for them and tant mieux pour nous deux...we arrived around noon, right in front of the Valrhones Chocolatarie. we inhaled cacao as we stepped off the bus, i kid you not. and omg, free samples. it was amazing. i guess you can tour the facilities, but we just poked around the shop, tasted some of the most beautiful, fresh chocolat ive ever come in contact with, and picked out the things we planned to buy on the way home.
i had looked up some addresses of caves in the area, but we headed to the bureau de tourisme for a map, all the while gushing about how freaking cute the town is - it's just very quaint and flowery, all next to the river, with hills criss-crossed with vineyards rising up on the rive droite (je crois...). so we set out, guide to the caves of Tain in hand, but TIF (this is france): most everywhere was closed for 2 hours for lunch. grr. we looked around the plaza where we were standing, contemplating how to kill time until free wine tasting started back up again...in front of us, serendipitously, a little wine shop. whatevs, maybe we can sample here too, so we wandered in. best decision ever.
the owner, a middle-aged guy from greece, immediately asked if we knew anything about the wine from the area, and as soon as we said no, not really, he pulled out glasses and asked if we wanted to taste red or white. we looked at each other, and in the moment that we hesitated, he made the decision for us: "lets just try both," he said. So he swirled three glasses with some white wine, dumped out the wine, and poured three small glasses. it was very light, dry and had a hint of floral and honey (yah, we totally had to play the "what do you taste/smell game,which im hooooorrible with). then we tried a young red (you dont say "ca pique" if you want to talk about it being sharp, you say "c'est aggressif") and theeeen the nice, aged red came out. we finished the bottle, that right. we'd been standing, chatting, but he invited us to sit and started talking about food pairing...and then we waxed poetic for a bit: the best way to enjoy wine is not to worry about the quality of the grapes or the accuracy of the food pairing, but rather the company you have. because, of course, in good company even mediocre wine tastes wonderful, just as the best bottle can be ruined if shared with the wrong company. and the best food pairing is good bread, and cheese. So he went and brought us a fougasse de chevre (basically like a white pizza made from goat cheese), which we had with the white (bc white is better with chevre, and red with cows milk cheeses). Finished off that bottle, too.
We spent the better part of three hours with George, he shooed away potential customers once or twice, but had to sell to some persistent Norwegians - but during this transaction, Mandy and I totally got to play translator/wine experts! It was awesome, they bought a lot, and then George served cafe and Chartreuse, a powerful (but tasty!) digestif. We hung out a while longer, listening to classic rock'n'roll and traditional Greek music, chatting about wine, France, his kids and the trip Mandy and I are planning to Greece. The afternoon ended with the best offer ever: not only did he ask that we come back soon (and hey, if we ever want to borrow his car to visit other vineyards, just let him know), but would we come and work as translators for his international shipping work and tutor him in English. omg, we looked at each other, looked at him, "seriously?" ,"yes, please, come back wed or sat!" and we high-fived, and it was a deal. this is how we do, and it is fantastic
sooo we left all giggling and a little tipsy (at least i was) and dehydrated and ecstatic, and went to sample some more wine at another shop nearby (muscat, mandy's favorite, but rather too sweet for me), buy some chocolate, and catch the train back to valence. we had intended to chill in a pub and watch the france-new zealand quarter-final game (rugby world cup), but we were both too crapped out to do anything, so i just stayed in and worked on travel itineraries...alors, TIF dans le sud: spending time relaxing, hanging out with new friends, enjoying a glass of wine or some chocolate...im getting used to it!

a la gare a tain l'hermitage

rugger bugger

ive been working-ish on lesson plans for my classes this week, meaning finding fun dc facts to incorporate into some kind of game or something, since i still dont know what im doing...but anyway, here are some fun facts about valence (procrastination is so much fun)...
- valence is a town situated in the Rhone Valley, in the Drome departement,in the Rhone-Alpes region (i cant figure how to do accents on this, which is merde)
- valence major (the city and the 'burbs, including Bourg-les-Valence, Portes-les-Valence, among others) has a population of about 115,000
- as far as weather goes, Valence is kissed by the Mistral wind that comes from the north, bringing pleasant summer weather and very chilly winters, but there's not usually too much snow. it marks about the highest reaches of the Med's sunniness, but may and october are the rainy months. (we're doing pretty well so far, though, with just one big rainstorm and a few drizzly days)
- there's a significant Armenian population (at least 10%), dating back to the refugees that arrived here during the armenian genocide in 1920-ish.
- during WWII, the northern half of the city was wiped out, so the prefecture and surrounding buildings are all modern.
- there are 10 colleges in town (i work at 3, and im pretty sure the others are without english assistants, quel dommage...) and the city has recently established several universities. theres also an Ecole des beaux arts...
- theres a lot of farming around here, esp apricots, peaches and kiwis apparently....local delicacies include various brioches (pralinee, parfumee a la fleur d'oranger) and this faux-gingerbread man cake, "la suisse" thats basically brioche with almond and orange flavoring. i dunno, theyre cute, but it sounds like fruitcake to me...i'll try it eventually...
- for such a small city, theres a lot of diversity, mainly north african influences, but also lebanese and turkish...we found a super sweet lebanese restaurant mmm delish hummus and baba!!

je suis en train de devenir vraiment francaise!

LA CARTE DE SEJOUR...oh man, this is one of the most important things anyone from outside the EU needs to take care of, because without the carte, we cannot apply for CAF. and clearly receiving money back on housing is one of the most attractive things in the world, so yah, that needs to happen toute de suite. I had received a convocation for yesterday at 15h30, so I went, looking all professional-like, with my binder of documents and more photocopies than you could count on both hands, bracing myself for the typical long wait, disorganization and confusion. But I'm finding that Valence is full of pleasant surprises: I was in and out in under 30 minutes, assured that after I went to the doctor, I could just mail in that form, and told that I could mail in some documents I was missing. Since we've all been overwhelmed with conflicting advice, I had figured that taking my rental contract would suffice as my proof of logement, particularly since I dont have any bills here in my name. But no, I need a copy of a bill from the Payrichou family, as well as a letter from them saying that I'm paying them rent...or something like that.Whatever, I have a month to mail that in...But yah! I have my interim residency card and my working permit! I'm, like, legal! Awesome!

Kiosque Peynet, et les falaises en Ardeche

est-ce tu preferes la france ou les etats-unis? France, clearly

aight, i've a few meetings under my belt, several introductions to various levels of english classes, and im learning more about france every minute. and staving off a headache, too.

moving to france is something ive been dreaming about seriously since my semester in Paris. after 4 months in the best city, and realizing as i was leaving that it took all 4 months to appreciate the advances i had made linguistically, i knew that i needed to 1) become a french major and 2) spend more time in france. as finding a job here is difficult (the current economic climate is not very hospitable to the hiring of foreigners for just any old job), the assistantship program offered an easy in as far as obtaining a long stay visa and residency and INCOME, even if such bliss was only to last for a few months. I'll take it, and work on the permanent move once ive finished graduate studies, no?

that being said, applying for the job and the visa was the easy part. now that we're here, the assistants have a dozen different circles to run, especially those of us hailinig from the good ol' US of A. EU residency cuts paperwork in half - americans need to apply for residency, which means piles of applications, a medical visit, an appointment at the prefecture, countless photocopies of passport and visa...thus far i have: signed my housing contract, mailed the notification of arrival so that i can be called in for my medical exam (yuck), opened a bank account (shockingly easy and yaay carte bancaire internationale = no more withdrawls from my DC account, hopefully from mid-oct til the end!), filled out the securite sociale forms (mailing them tomorrow, hopefully with all the right attachments!), received my convocation to the prefectre (jeudi a 15h30), and filled out my direct deposit forms (to be turned in at Pagnol, my main school = ecole de rattachement). then, if all goes well, i'll have my medical exam and send in that info to receive my carte de sejour (residency); i'll get my insurance card (securite sociale) - the french loooove insurance (even Happy People has insurance!); with these pieces of information, i'll be able to apply for the CAF (caisse d'allocations familiales) = dinero towards rent expenses since im poor. all of this should be finalized by....febuary. oh lordy.

[note: as much as i love france and all things french just for so-being, one of the hardest things for me to adjust to, besides la fermature du dimanche, is the "work to live, not live to work" mentality. i like everything fast, punctual, specific, high-speed...mandy and i waited in the post office for 30 freaking minutes the other day to buy stamps bc the man decided to go around to the back and chill with his coworkers after every transaction.i almost died. and im here to "work" for 12 hours a week? whaaaat?]

papers aside, this week ive been spending some time in the classrooms, too. our first week is reserved for observation, so we can see how the teachers interact with the students, what their levels of english are, etc. ive only seen a few minutes of actual class, however, since the students are very curious about newcomers; ive had a lot of Q & A sessions in the last 48 hours.

im working in three colleges, Marcel Pagnol, Paul Valery and Jean Zay. College,in france, is a rough equivalent to middle school in the states. the grades count backwards: sixeme = 11-12 yrs old, not much english
cinquieme = 12-13
quatrieme = 13 -14
troisieme = 14 - 15
then they go on to lycee (high school). I will work primarily with the 4e and 3e students, since in theory they have a better grasp on english and might best benefit from interaction with a native speaker, although several teachers have remarked that generally the younger kids are more enthusiastic about foreign languages and the older ones are more frustrated at not being able to express themselves as clearly as they would like. ive met kids from all the age groups, and based on the initial interactions, i'll be thrilled to hang out with any of them.

monday morning i headed out to Pagnol, bright and early, since i was supposed to be there for the 8h section of EU (kids that are taking 5 hrs/wk of english rather than just 3 - they tend to be more engaged in language studies and get to do more fun projects) with julia, the teacher i had met on friday. well...she was out sick, so instead i met Emily, another teacher, and hung out with her sections of 5e from 8-10h, and then i sat in on Annique's 6e class. we did q & a, half in english, half in french...the kids were fantastic,i forgot how cute and awkward 13 was...in all the classes i visited, kids would ask if i like france or the US better (france, of course, and then they'd be all smiling), if i speak french (yes, and theyd look all relieved, then ask how hard it is to learn another language), if i was rich, new celebrities, had visited france before, had a boyfriend, what are my sisters' names, do i know 50 Cent, do i have a gun (seriously. i looked at Emliy like, did he really just ask that? and she was all "you should have said yes, to strike some fear in them! omg, hilarious). oh, and then the best part, besides their super-cute "do we get to see you all year?": 3 little girls in the 6e class asked for my autograph! and they gave me theirs, and then they just sat and examined my handwriting...and i remembered that not only with my accent be different for them (they learn british english. i HATE hearing "have you got..." but i'll have to adjust), but my penmanship is different, too.

today, tuesday, i had a meeting at Paul Valery at 15h45; Jean Zay had simply sent me the hours they wanted me to work, but i hadnt actually talked to anyone, so i headed there in the morning,to see if i could sit in on a class or two. the secretary advised that i come in during the lunch break, but as i was heading out of the school to find somewhere to hang out for an hour, a teacher walking into the building asked me if i spoke english - it was mme conte, one of the teachers im working with. she is possibly the cutest thing ever - she burst into english, was super psyched that im from dc, we talked about my hours, she introduced me to the principal (and then laughed behind his back when he didnt understand that "she's from washington" meant the US, told me about her daughter and boyfriend (british, of vietnamese origin, didnt like living in france so he commutes between his job in london and her in valence)...omg, what a hoot. i met another english teacher, as well, but they were both so excited and flustered that they sent me home after that, rather than having me stay for class. buut i'll be back there for an hour tomorrow, with mme conte! cant wait!

and then there was one..clg paul valery. it's a nice facility- the school building is U-shaped around a sunny courtyard, and the classrooms all open onto open-air walkways. the day was perfection and they'd opened the doors to catch the afternoon breeze. the principal (very nice guy) dropped me off in a 5e class for the last 15 minutes of the period, and i got to do another q & a section, and then i conferred with the english teachers about my hours. sadly for them, id already set up my days at Pagnol and Zay, so they need to meet on their own and see where they can fit in...chaos! i then spent about 2 minutes being interviewed by a section of 3e (the oldest kids) - they are so loud and nosy! the teacher for that section, christine (she was actually the only teacher that replied to my emails this summer, so bonus points for her), is great, though - she just gives them this dry sarcasm and stares down the chatty cathys. but yes. i love these kids. i know i have no idea what it will be like working with them, and im sure i'll cry some days and be well tired of it all come april, if not sooner, but it's heartening that these first few days have gone so well. the teachers are open and eager to help and the kids dont seem put off by an american standing in front of them to teach them english. im going to start doing some research and reflecting so that i can do real things with them rather then falling back on bingo all the time. i mean, i truly loved learning spanish and french, and my teachers were mostly boring in middle and high school, but im not boring, right?! no, it'll be good for me to think outside the box about activities and tying in their lessons in memorable ways. and to learn to enunciate and speak loudly.

last thing that was great: i found my place. you know, somewhere that you know youre destined to visit often (like politics and prose for me in dc)...it's a cafe called tasse & glace. it's a small cafe tucked in a corner near the theater, with bright green walls and good music and an AMAZING tea menu, as well as coffee, sirop, juices and (love it) ice cream. i just drank my fruity tisane (served with a bowl of sugar cubes, haribo candies and a mini-macaroon) and read for an hour. it was so nice to enjoy a coffeehouse for a change, rather than being behind the bar (not that i was tired of my job or anything....)! i love it, and no doubt will be a regular, especially once the cold sets in. and it's so nice to feel at home here. the town is cute - theres a great park with a fountain and a kiddy train and a little zoo, i have the Happy People, i found a post for yoga classes that i should pursue, there's ice skating and swimming, good buses (even if they stop running ridiculously early), theres an artsy movie theatre, i live with a fat cat named Kiwi...ive already been asked for directions and stopped traffic so some random dudes could hit on me. im speaking french....sigh. after the most dragged-out move ever (berks to ny to takoma, still waiting on the security deposit...blahh) and living out of suitcases for the better part of 2 months, then the hectic-ness of orientation last week, it is sooooooo nice to just feel comfortable and know where everything is and to be in one place. ahhhh la fraaaance