14Bah ouais, pourquoi pas?
Well can you believe it? Currently typing this between lessons on my final day at school! I will write a proper post to round up my time in France over the weekend some time, but for now I will just give a final update on what I have been doing over the past week.
Lucky for us, the weather has been fantastic for the past couple of weeks, seemingly with the exception of today where the gloomy looking sky and possibility of rain has returned. I won’t miss the rain over here in Northern France, but it would be rather fitting to see it rain before I go. Nice weather has meant that I have had my legs out a couple of times, something that the French do not seem to do, sticking to their jeans and coats combo regardless of what the weather is like. Needless to say, attracted unwanted attention in Béthune, but in Lille it wasn’t so bad, people are more normal there.
Last Friday was quite productive for me, involving a whistle stop trip to Arras, going to the Post Office to send the letter to cancel my internet contract, going to the shop to make sure I had done everything right to cancel said contract, buying a few souvenirs (nothing beats a Tintin comic or two) and buying some food to sustain me over the weekend. I do this every Friday and yet every Sunday I sit and stare at the collection of noodles and stale bread I have left wondering what to have for dinner. Well I’ve done that for the last time!
As for Saturday, I would have loved to have gone to the beach. The weather was lovely (again, skirt weather) and being so close to the coast (about an hour from Dunkerque, or Dunkirk as you English people like to call it!) I thought it would be nice to see the D-Day beaches and then just have an ice cream whilst paddling in the sea. Unfortunately, on closer examination on Google Maps it was apparent that it takes about an hour to walk from the station to the beach, and navigating our way around an undoubtedly busy unknown town didn’t really seem like much fun. Instead, Hannah and I decided to go to Lille to go shopping. Although we didn’t buy that much or stay for very long, it was really good to catch up, for one reason or another we hadn’t seen each other for about 3 or 4 weeks and it would be the last time I saw her before heading back to Herts. We even managed to eat outside since the weather was so nice.
And then my last week at school began! As much as I love having lessons cancelled, it has been really nice to go to all of mine this week, especially since most of them haven’t been real lessons. Before coming to school on Monday for my 8am lesson I felt a bit fed up – I had been asked to organise a game for the students and really wondered whether this was worthy of going to school for. Fortunately I was reminded how great this class were (and how one of them looks scarily like Sophie Novak) and they made laugh, so it was worth going to. Another lesson that day involved me going along half way through where the students would sing songs in English to me (Heal the World, Imagine and Over the Rainbow) to prepare for the ‘Journée Culturelle’ (Cultural Day) on Friday, and later on 2 of my students arguing over whether Rocky was an American propaganda film.
Tuesday was a bit different, I had to do a couple of proper lessons where one class behaved and the other was a nightmare. I feel bad in saying it, but I won’t be sorry to see the back of those students if I’m perfectly honest. In my other classes that are more often than not cancelled, I was just asked to stay with the whole group whilst they had the opportunity to talk as much as possible with me. This was really just question time with Hannah, I stood at the front of the class whilst being asked questions that the students didn’t really want to ask. It’s all good for their language! I also learnt a new expression – ‘Les deux font la paire’, basically meaning that they are made for each other, a lovely little phrase I think you will agree. (This was in reference to 2 Spanish teachers at the school who are married and have started to seem more and more like each other. Think dog and his owner looking alike – I noticed that they have matching denim jackets and His & Hers glasses, plus they’re both a bit loony apparently!)
A lazy Wednesday was on the cards yesterday, I’ll have plenty of time to do my project when I get home. And now we’re on today. I have to say that today feels just like any other Thursday to be honest, nothing special has happened and I don’t think it will sink in that I’m not coming back here until much later. But in my class this morning I just stayed and was a pupil for the lesson which was fun – good listening practice for me, believe me and it made me so nostalgic for my old English lessons at school. Also learnt the meaning of exculpate. Definitely a bit embarrassing that the students know the word’s meaning in English and I don’t. During the lesson I was bombarded with questions from one particularly enthusiastic pupil, and got invited to school tomorrow for a ‘surprise’. Having little else to do (packing can all be done on Saturday) I said yes, I am looking forward to seeing what the class have prepared for the journée culturelle, I always like to see what the French think English culture is!
So really, all that is left for me to do is take my final 2 lessons this afternoon before I have completed my assistantship. It really is so odd that I am going home for good on Sunday, like I said, it could take a while to sink in.
Béthune: régional capital de culture!
I’m a bad blogger, end of. This week has been a little busier than usual with me realising that if I am leaving at the end of next week, I really need to start sorting out everything before I go. Harder than it sounds.
So I’ll take you all the way back to last Friday when I spent the afternoon in the regional ethnology museum with the goal of looking at one book that I had been searching for all over this town. The museum itself was a corrugated iron shed; accessible through a gate which looked a lot like the place they store film props when they’re not being used. Apart from they were just really old artefacts form the region. There was a room full of books, although the one I wanted was not there which was brilliant, of course. I was pointed in the direction of a shelf where all the books began with the words ‘la mort’ meaning ‘death’ which was certainly cheery. Unfortunately the ideas on death in the Jewish faith were irrelevant to me, and I instead got to look at one useful book before walking back home again. I did of wear totally stupid clothes for the weather as well; carrying a coat around all afternoon isn’t fun!
Saturday was totally different to usual. For one, I sat watching TV all day and then I stayed in Béthune! This year the town is the regional capital of culture and so there are all sorts of ‘cultural’ things going on from now until December, so to celebrate there was an opening party where a huge stage was put in the square and there was a 6 hour concert. Not bad for Béthune! I went with the girls who live in Béthune and some of their friends that live in Lille and had a pretty good night with quite a few drinks and the best fricadelle-frites I have ever eaten. We need them in the UK.
Sunday was unexciting with minimal year abroad work being done and more watching of various TV shows. What’s life without a lazy Sunday once in a while? And then the week began again. This week so far I had a few cancelled lessons and so got to go home early once and that’s really all that’s happened of significance this week at school. I’ve been a bit fed up of lessons this week and with being in France itself, just wanting it to be over. This always happens though, when I get close to a holiday (or in this case, the end) I just want to be gone! Slightly worried that those kind of feelings aren’t helping ma to take advantage of the year abroad, but I guess everyone gets anxious to be home once in a while, right?
And yesterday I treated myself to a shopping trip in the sun. It was so hot yesterday, I was just walking round in a vest top and my jeans, and everyone had the same idea as me – everyone was shopping! Stayed ages because of the ridiculous queues and stuff and bought quite a few pretty new things…
So we’re back to today. Been in school since 9, and had to get up early to get the bus since Xavier is on a school trip in Rome and was obviously unable to give me a lift. I’m pretty tired, not gonna lie, but I have done loads since being at school today. Wrote my letters to cancel my internet contract which I really need to send off tomorrow, although I really feel like I have done this way too late and feel like correspondence with them is going to be impossible once I’m back in England, and I’ve written a year abroad blog. Other plans to organise my life this week include going to the bank to ask for a special form for closing my account and attempting to get some money from CAF (the French government) who can subsidise our rent. Now we know it’s rather late to do it, but better late than never right?!
My Big Fat Gypsy Laundry
This week at school has been fairly uneventful, with the majority of my classes not being cancelled (although I did get to go home early on Monday), having only 2 pupils turn up to classes that I had sat in school waiting 3 hours for, and recounting my Grandads’ (both of them) anecdotes about evacuation back in their day to a group of 17 year olds at 8 in the morning. I like to think that my life is getting more normal here (you know, with only 2 weeks until I go back to normality) but the sad reality is that I am probably coming to realise that I am starting to think these things are normal. Except for what happened to me yesterday, I don’t think I will ever consider that normal.
Having not done any washing for a little while, I trundled on up to the launderette yesterday to wash my clothes, completely unaware of the strangest half an hour of my year abroad was about to unfold. When I got there I thought it odd that the 2 women in there were wearing their pyjamas, but just ignored it and tried to work out which language they were speaking. I eventually went for Spanish having heard the word ‘ahora’ and was fairly pleased with myself. Then 2 other girls walked in, also wearing their pyjamas…at midday on a Wednesday. Was it a pyjama party that no one had told me about at the launderette that day? Whatever it was, I was feeling pretty overdressed at this point. I then started to hear a very odd exchange going on…the Spanish people speaking French to the other girls, who were replying in English. I let it go on for a little while, but then thought I could help them out a little bit and so I did, translating ‘What are your names?’, ‘How old are you?’ and the like, realising that the English girls had an accent that I recognised. From Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Eventually I learnt that the Spanish people were also gypsies now living on a camp in Béthune (in hindsight, they may not have been Spanish and just had an accent like English gypsies do, whatever it was, it was hard to understand) and the English girls were 17 and 21 living here for now on a camp in town too. Remember that the whole exchange was questions being asked to me, so I found out that the 21 year old was a widow with 2 children, aged 2 and 3 and that her husband was murdered in prison. Now, what I would never do in this situation would to be to ask more questions such as ‘How did he die?’, ‘Why did he die?’, ‘When did he die?’ and ‘Are you on your own now then?’, but my Spanish friends did, through me of course. I felt so awkward asking such personal questions – let’s just say it was at this moment that I wrote off any future career as an interpreter. The girls also asked me how I managed to learn the lingo (their word, not mine) and I didn’t want to mention that I learnt at school, I know it’s not a good topic of conversation with gypsy girls (learnt that on the telly) and I went on to ask them where they are from in England before being looked at like a moron before getting the response ‘Everywhere – we’re travellers’. Silly me, forgot about that small detail. They also had some hideous neon skirts in the washing machine, presumably for the 3 year old daughter. As I left I said it was nice to meet them at all the polite things your Mum teaches you to say when you are little before hearing ‘Good luck with your college course thing’ and what I imagined may be some bitching about the fact that I wasn’t wearing my PJs. I just hoped someone would be home so I could tell them my story about meeting real life gypsies after we all watched Big Fat Gypsy Wedding!
Yesterday’s other planned activities were a trip to the Musée Régionale d’éthnologie where I had been informed that there are some books that could really help me out with my project, and to the médiathèque where I hoped to find some of the books I had half-heartedly look for before – this time I knew I would actually have to ask someone for some help. I thought ringing the museum might be an idea before I walked half an hour, turned up and probably got made to feel like I am really making someone go out of their way for me, and so that I did. After talking to 2 different people, they concluded that I couldn’t go because there was only the 2 of them, and that the guy in charge of the books wasn’t there. I said I could go on Friday and that did he want me to give them a time, and my number, you know, in case of any problems. Found it a bit annoying how unhelpful they were being, surely a regional museum with a document centre housing 1500 books should be a little more welcoming to the public?! This isn’t an attitude I am unfamiliar with though, the first time I went to the archives, the people at the town hall reception didn’t seem to know what to do when I said I didn’t have an appointment, and when I actually went to the médiathèque yesterday, I was met with surprise that I actually wanted to view a book then, when I was there. French people are strange sometimes.
375 steps too many
This weekend I ventured out of the North and over towards the East of the country – I was feeling wild, I know you can tell. I went with Zara to visit Marie who is an Erasmus student over there and who was to prove to be a pretty good tour guide.
Of course, none of this travelling malarky was going to be easy – I needed to be in Lille during the 4 hour gap in which there are no trains from Béthune, so went the long way round through Hazebrouck and then to Lille. Took me almost double the usual time, I wonder how enough people haven’t complained and got something done about the trains around here!
It was my first ever trip on a TGV and I was very impressed when I got on – definitely nicer than any Eurostar I have been on. The journey was to take 4 hours, and to be honest it didn’t really feel like it, I had a nap and was engrossed in my book for the majority, although I have to say that it was so sunny that I could have needed sunglasses if I was facing the right way. Having arrived at just after 3, it meant that we had some time to look around the town in the sun and get ourselves ready for Marie’s housemate’s surprise party. This involved buying alcohol in a cheap German shop similar to Aldi, eating ice creams and Zara chatting up Marie’s friend Helen in Pizza Hut. Strasbourg is a really well connected town with trams and buses whizzing about all over the place continually, and if that’s not enough, everyone has a bike and likes to almost run you over in the square with them (including Marie and Cristina). The point I was trying to make was that I got to have a go on the tram (not half as exciting as the trams at a museum I went to as a child but hey ho) before going up 12 floors or something to the flat where the party was and enjoying the urban landscape of roads and McDonalds. As you all know, I haven’t really taken part in my fair share of French parties, and it is apparently the done thing to bring food with you. We took various snacks and pizza, but were clearly outdone by the congealed rice dish brought by a group of Americans and the tiramisu made by a couple of German girls. Everyone seemed very nice; although I was once again a little shocked on finding out that some of the American girls speak little to no French since they can study their modules in English. Living where I do, this would of course be impossible, and in fact by speaking French I have learnt so much more about France than I ever could have done speaking only English. It’s also a shame for those who can speak French, they always have to use English as the common language (in France) so as not to alienate anyone. I am of the opinion that it is a little ignorant to go to another country to live and not learn anything of their language, but maybe that’s just me. At this party the flaming shots came out and I saw Zara’s thumb on fire before she disappeared for about an hour (no exaggeration) holding it under the cold tap. To be fair, fingers on fire don’t look like that much fun. The party dissipated at about midnight with most of Marie’s housemates heading home to do uni work in the morning (I don’t even have that dedication in Southampton, let’s be honest) whilst we followed the others to another party that was apparently on 3 floors. Let me explain these 3 floors – the living room/kitchen, the bedroom and the roof. Yes, the roof. On about the 6th floor. I’m not gonna lie, being on a roof full of drunk people with no real safety precautions being tipsy myself was not fun. Marie didn’t really know anyone so we didn’t stay long, and after being temporarily locked in we made it out to eat leftover pizza at home and go be bed ready for a day of sightseeing on Saturday.
We were very good on Saturday and actually got out of bed at a reasonable hour to go and explore Strasbourg. Poor old Marie has done this many times before, although it wasn’t until we started climbing to the top of the cathedral as the first stop of the day that Marie explained that that was the fifth time that she had done it. Don’t think I could have gone up there 5 times, I was pretty terrified the whole way up (there a holes in the wall so that you can see exactly how far you could fall) but I was more worried about the serious lactic acid build up in my thighs half way up the mammoth 375 steps. Once at the top the views were lovely and Marie pointed out all the significant buildings in her life. There was also a man laying on the ground taking pictures and some American children getting sickeningly excited about the bells in the tower ringing. As much as I thought the way up was bad, the way down did well to rival the fear I felt. Considering the shaking in my legs, I am surprised that I made it down so easily. Must remember that heights are not my thing.
The day also included seeing a live band in the middle of the square, eating what I like to call a hash brown salad (anyone ever ordered a salad only to be greeted with hash browns in it?!) and taking many pictures of many old buildings. A personal highlight was the boat trip where we were the last 3 people on the boat and had to sit at completely different ends to the boat (it wasn’t a highlight for that reason!). I was quite enjoying my Irish tour guide on the headphones until Marie informed me that there was a French children’s version – essentially a pirate gave me a tour of Strasbourg. Beat that. My favourite part was when his French friend (all on the headphones of course) asked why the Marseillaise was called that if it was written in Strasbourg and the pirate just answered ‘Aaaaaaah les mystères de l’histoire!’ (Aaah, the mysteries of history!).
In the evening (after an impromptu nap) we headed to dinner at Flam’s which appeared to be the happening place on a Saturday night in Strasbourg since we waited almost an hour for a table playing Cristina’s games. Over dinner we all decided not to go out – for some reason we were so tired and it was gone 11 by the time we were to get back anyway. Instead we settled down to the hilarious French X Factor and got confused about the clocks changing!
And as for Sunday, well we got up and packed, ate some lunch and then sat on a train for most of the day with a quick stop outside Disneyland on the way.
I had a really good weekend, Strasbourg is so different to the towns up here so I enjoyed it, but I would urge anyone to go and visit, it is so pretty!
The sun has got his hat on
I’ve got a bit lax on the blogging front lately which is now quite annoying since I am trying to think back to what I did last week to be able to tell you all about it. Hmmm. I sat here last Monday and recounted my weekend for you, so a week on I will treat you to some updates in the life of Hannah.
Last Tuesday I was practically treated to a day off thanks to those amazing things – mock exams. To everyone else involved they are a pain, students revising in the corridor and teachers chain marking exam papers have proved this to me, but being of no real importance here, I have none of the stress and all of the time off. That means that I was needed in school for a measly hour where I sat with my BTS class trying to discuss which phone messages are the most important in a list, and role playing a phone conversation. For a group studying accountancy and management, I am slightly concerned about their ability to pretend to manage. Granted it was in English, but most of them seem on another planet most of the lesson. I also encountered my favourite problem – the look my students give me when they clearly don’t believe what I am telling them. That would be OK if I was teaching them comically inappropriate phrases, but I am trying to be a good teacher and teach them useful things. Who knew it was so unbelievable that we say ‘See you later/tomorrow/soon etc’. I had a list as long as my arm of things to do once I got in but I instead sat in bed and enjoyed my impromptu day off. I feel like if I do that on a normal day off I should feel bad for not doing any YA project work (mainly because my Mum phones me and asks if I’ve done anything and the answer is generally no), so this was a bit of a treat.
As Wednesdays go, this one wasn’t too bad I have to admit. Plan was to head to the archives for the afternoon having emailed the guy in charge after reading his articles from ‘La Voix du Nord’ on his blog and organised to meet and for him to give me some info. Once I got to town however, I suddenly remembered why I hadn’t been up in a while. The funfair. On a sunny Wednesday afternoon. With the kids off school for the afternoon and being treated to some sun, I had a job fighting my way through enthusiastic funfair goers, but once I got in the town hall, it was a relief. Until I realised that you could still hear the music, the poor people that work there. I had already been given the name of a mémoir that I should look at by my friend (I use the term loosely) at the tourist office, and when I got there it proved not only 100 times longer than I imagined, but actually really useful. I was plonked in the corner of his office to do this research and I was quite happily sat there doing so, minding my own business doing so. Bless him though, between phone calls he kept bringing more stuff – a woman in yellow tights photocopied for me the relevant pages from pretty much the only book on the history of the town, and I went home with a leaflet and the ‘bilan’ from after the war. I don’t know what a ‘bilan’ is, but it seems to be a list of all the damage from how many shells and whatever during the war. I’m sure it will be useful.
Aaaaand Thursday. Another day at school where I discussed a book with my most chatty group yet, and gave a lesson on Red Nose Day, a concept that my students just don’t seem to quite understand. I will update soon with news of my weekend in Strasbourg, hope you have all been enjoying the sun!
Just a little note to end on here, but something I have noticed recently. Now people say the British talk constantly about the weather, and granted, it is a favourite topic of conversation of ours, but I think the French could be rivalling us for this stereotypical feature. Every day I have gone into school this week and asked how anyone is, I get the same response ‘Ah, il fait beau, c’est bien!’ (Ah, the weather’s lovely, it’s great!). That’s not quite the response I was looking for but hey, these Northeners with the same climate as us wish for sunny days just as much as the British. Soon they’ll be drinking tea and swapping their frites for an English breakfast.
The Erasmus life
I wrote this on Monday but I forgot to post it…so here you are:
I was feeling lazy yesterday and decided that writing a blog entry would be the perfect way to kill some time between lessons today instead– let’s hope I’m right. So, my weekend.
Had a bit of a different weekend this time, since my usual weekend buddies were at home and in Paris and since I had an invite to go to Zara’s and live her Erasmus life that I hadn’t yet taken her up on. I headed into Lille on Friday afternoon where after a week of glorious sunshine and taking off my coat on the odd occasion, the skies decided to open and we were treated to a few hours of rain giving me wet feet thanks to my impractical choice of shoes. After buying alcohol for the evening (spending a grand total of just over 5 euros for a bottle of wine and beer which I still owe Zara) I was invited into a house tradition of Fajita Friday with Zara’s Scottish housemates (including entertainment provided by Rebecca Black) before meeting more housemates of all nationalities. That was something that I thought was great – although decifering different accents speaking in French is not something I am used to, living where I live, all the people speaking French are French generally ! Anyway, lots of people came over to have drinks including Hannah, another assistant from Southampton who lives in Lille, her friends and a few people that are from Nottingham Trent. We didn’t go out until nearly 2am and didn’t really stay out long – between people having gone out the previous night and Hannah and friends going to Bruges in the morning, everyone seemed to have good reason to go home. Mine was the empty bottle of wine sat in Zara’s house. All in all though it was a good night, as you are well aware my nights out in France are limited and when I do get to do something a little bit different, it is always nice.
The next morning I can’t say I felt good in any way – Zara’s wobbling bed didn’t really help me too much with the whole hangover thing but it soon went off in time to start the mammoth cleaning session that we embarked on so as not to anger the landlady that frequently comes to visit on a Saturday and likes to complain about the slightest mess. I think I remember seeing numerous bottles of wine on the living room table for over a week last year and no one batted an eyelid – what a different life for student houses in England and France (although it could just be this landlady, Zara’s housemate backed her up when she said that it was worse than your mother coming to visit). Somehow it got to 5pm and I thought I should get out of everyone’s hair and back to Béthune, so we took the sunny but somewhat chilly walk into town so that I could get the train, but not before bumping into Xavier who I could spot a mile off on account of the fact that he wears practically the same clothes everyday.
Yesterday was Sunday and so of course I did nothing of significance. Went for a run (never before done in France and probably not in over a year in England, I am so lazy), cleaned, watched Jersey Shore and settled down for the evening to watch ‘The Blind Side’, definitely a new favourite of mine.
And we’re back to today. No 8am lesson today so came in to do some practice speaking exams with my students, most were good although the last person I had shuddered when I asked him if he liked football and told me his favourite film is Dirty Dancing. A not so closet gay I think. Other things that have happened today include students not turning up to their lesson and being booted out of my classroom and into a broom cupboard (it’s a bit bigger than that but you catch my drift) to do my final lesson of the day. Aren’t people nice ? I have a feeling that this week is going to be a nightmare with my room, mock exams are not making my life easy ! Oh and Xavier gave me a book to help me prepare a lesson for next week, I couldn’t believe my luck when it was ‘The Blitzed Brits’ of the Horrible Histories collection. I’m not sure if I should mention that I actually already own this book at home…
Facebook stalkers
Been a bit lax with everything this week including blogging, as well as lesson planning and doing any year abroad work. I blame the fact that I have had no feedback from my supervisor on my project and so I feel a bit lost with knowing what I should be doing.
Anyway, today marks my final month in France – it’s gone quick hasn’t it?! This is something else that is concerning me about my project, I only have one month to collect all of my information! I think it has dawned on me that most of the writing is going to happen when I get home, I find it really hard to work here when I am already using my desk as a dressing table, lesson planning area, kitchen worktop and kitchen table and I know I can sit down in my house at home and work for hours at a time without distractions.
So this week, what have I done? Well I have been to school as usual, and in fact I worked an extra day this Wednesday as a favour for Maryse so that was fun as you can imagine, I do love going into schools on my days off…
Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal days. Didn’t have to go in for 8am on Monday (always a bonus) but was greeted with exam practice to do with my students in my first lesson. I know this is what I did with my French assistant at school, but I’m not really sure how useful it is. Like, I haven’t read the handbook or whatever they have from the exam boards that tells me what I should be asking or whatever (although I’m doubtful as to whether this exists in France) and I always get the feeling that the students look at me as though they know I’m doing it wrong. Most are OK, but I had one girl who presented me with 3 sentences about the polar bears in the picture (definitely a word she looked up on her phone) and then when I asked her questions, stared at me in silence. Apparently it’s nothing I was doing; she does it to her teacher too. Like what?! Oh so very odd.
Tuesday’s lessons involved being asked to translate Lady GaGa lyrics instead of working, and I almost indulged but didn’t have the song on my iPod. Other teaching highlights of the week involved students finding me on Facebook, stalking all of my profile picture with Maryse and telling her that my friends are ‘super-mignons!’ (privacy settings have since been changed and the students complained to their teacher). This prompted a lecture on the dangers of the internet, but she didn’t mind because they were almost my age. Well I bloody well mind when you let them do it in your lesson! And then I was fed an aubergine and steak haché (essentially beef mince) quiche. It was not good. Finally today, I couldn’t really be bothered with teaching so we did a gap-fill exercise on St Patrick’s Day before I let my students celebrate by leaving 10-15 minutes early.
And so, that is my week, minus all the boring bits and the extent to which Jersey Shore is taking over my life. Sorry it’s a bit boring, but hey, such is life around here sometimes!
Spring is here?
I am aware that usually, I blog a lot. This week I haven’t blogged really, although I have to tell you that it doesn’t mean that I have had a particularly busy week, it just took me a little while to get back into the swing of Ch’ti life once again.
So here I am, giving you a little update on my life back in France. I left you on Tuesday night after I left my card to get into school at home and went home with the key for my classroom (which isn’t actually mine). Smooth. On Wednesday I had big plans which is unusual for me and let me tell you, these plans will blow your mind. Having arranged for lunch in town with Hannah and Luisaidh (after originally wanting to go to Lille but the trains of course did not permit this), I also wanted to go to the library to do some research in the books that were recommended by Marie in the tourist information office before the holidays. Off I went with my notebook and pencilcase amongst other things ready to take amazing notes and progress with this project. Of course, the book I wanted was out (I mean come on, how many people are doing research on war memorials?) and any other useful looking ones were apparently on the shelf, but I looked and they certainly were not. So that was unsuccessful of course. It also left me with some extra time which I spent circling one shop and playing Sudoku on my phone in La Halle before the others arrived. Lunch was lovely, spent a few hours sitting and chatting in there, pretty sure I hadn’t seen Hannah or Luisaidh for near on a month with my travels to Belgium and the holidays that followed. All in all, it was very nice.
Classes on Thursday. To sum up, I am constantly amazed at one girl’s English and insight into the oddest book I have ever read, and my students’ knowledge of the Beatles. They’re good kids as you can tell. I also photocopied a lot of things following my lesson planning sessions and felt bad about how many trees went into that photocopying.
This weekend involved some shopping on Friday, and going to the cinema on Saturday with Hannah including an hour wait at Béthune for her train home. Oh the joys of French transport.
Hannah and I were both talking about the time we have left here yesterday on the train and she summed up things for me perfectly when she said that she loves the area, the people here and the friends that she has made, but quite honestly, there isn’t anything left to do that we haven’t already done living where we do. That’s how I feel. Last night I had an overwhelming feeling of boredom once I got home and spent the evening sulking to myself about how bored I was. At those kind of times it seems to me that 5 weeks seems like a very long time until I finish and go home, and yet at the same time I’m not sure whether I will be quite ready to finish when I actually do. It’s odd, I can’t really work out how I feel right now about life here.
This week I have also booked my tickets to Strasbourg with Zara, and so I will be in fact on my way home in 2 weeks time. Oh and as for my title, the sun has been out this week and scarves and coats have been unnecessary - just a light summer jacket! Hopefully we won’t go back to the torrential rain of November or the snow showers of December any time soon…
The home stretch
Well it’s been a little while. Almost 3 weeks in fact thanks to my (extended) holidays in England!
Even though this is a blog to talk about my year abroad, I thought I would give a little mention to my holidays because I had such a lovely time back in England! I spent a lot of time drinking tea and being told that I have some ‘dear little shoes’ by my Nan, ate fish and chips until I was fit to burst, cried when Webby didn’t win his Sabbs position in Southampton but loved dressing up all the same and of course spent plenty of time in London eating chocolate and watching crappy TV. Despite the fact I had a great holiday, I was feeling pretty ready to come back here and finish off my final 6 weeks which I know are going to absolutely fly by!
I got back here yesterday, missing my lessons for the day with the permission of M. Pojda the deputy head, and not before a cheeky trip to McDonalds for a breakfast. Tom and I both tried to think of the last time we had a breakfast there and then concluded that we didn’t know because we are never up that early (or in Tom’s case, he hasn’t stayed up all night in a while, I’m not that wild). I sat next to a strange Flemish man on Eurostar who felt the need to take his shoes off for the 2 hour journey he was on to Brussels and also thought I would enjoy his humming to himself. I didn’t, but it was better than being chatted to by a French woman the whole way as I was on the way back to London (and she told me that there were too many ‘foreigners’ in London, telling me that they are the reason for the violence and Paris is nowhere near as bad. The French eh?) A 40 minute train journey on from this and I was back in Béthune’s glorious sunshine lugging my bag back to the lycée. It always amazes me how quickly I can get from home to here, it seems longer since I gain an hour on my journey but it really is no time at all!
I arrived to an invoice for my rent and a request for my departure date, lovely to know that they care! Promptly paid, getting mistaken for Alexa who hasn’t paid last month’s rent either and arguing my innocence in slightly rusty French but I’m getting there! Went to the supermarket and bought enough shopping to severely injure my shoulder muscles and collapsed onto my bed for the evening. Didn’t realise how tired I was until I sat down.
Today was my first day back at school, and despite my alarm not being set until 9am, I was stirring for hours before that. Need to get used to my not so comfortable bed again I think. Oh and then I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to shower because there was no hot water. This has never happened before, the water is rarely even lukewarm here so God knows what was going on today. Luckily it’s back now (I know this from almost burning myself whilst washing up). School was actually not too bad for the first day back. I had a pigeon hole full of notes irrelevant to me and one telling me that this afternoon’s lesson was cancelled before being told that another lesson of mine would be cancelled later on too. So I finished school 3 hours early! Plus, the lessons I did have were well behaved and not hard work at all, although they did look horrified when my phone buzzed and I looked at it - it was important Grad Ball business!
3 hours early I was home and sat and tried to lesson plan. This never happens when I get home from school so even though I eventually got one lesson finished 4 hours later with distractions from all my favourite website and sitting in Misha’s room, I have in fact been far more productive than I usually am and have all my lessons planned for this week. Next week is however a different story…
Tomorrow is going to hopefully be a day where I get some YA project work done - off to the library I will be going, and I am hoping to buy a French book that is more interesting than the on I currently have because I can’t even bring myself to pick this one up. Apart from that, my plan for the next 6 weeks (or less than that in fact) is to be super productive and get as much of my project done as I possibly can before going back to the UK and allowing my French to get horribly rusty again.
Madame, madame! Il y a 2 couteaux et 2 forchettes! Aaaah!
This is the story of my school trip to Paris and stay with a French family. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Because the trip was to leave at 6.30am on Monday morning, the plan was that I would stay with Céline Leducq, a teacher at my school, on Sunday night so that I would be able to get there on time, and I would be staying again on Monday night because we wouldn’t be getting back until about 9pm. Maryse was to pick me up on Sunday evening to take me to Céline’s house, and when she arrived I saw that the car was already full. This was weird. I then realised that I would be sitting in the beack between Maryse’s elderly parents. Oh my life really does not get much more normal the longer I am here. I did however hear a French person say ‘C’est la vie’ (immediately thought of the B*witched song) and I got to see the inside of one of the old mining houses, lucky me.
At Céline’s house I met the husband, the children and the dog before being asked if having gauffres for dinner would be OK, of course I said yes, I had never had a savoury gauffre before. Whilst dinner was cooking I was treated to some stories of Pierre’s (the husband) year abroad in Ireland, and how he learnt to play the bagpipes. When he asked me if I wanted to hear, I obviously couldn’t say no so I listened to a Frenchman called Pierre playing the bagpipes and asked question about the various articles I was shown when he was part of a French bagpipe group (I don’t know what you’re supposed to call them). Unfortunately he had to give up playing regularly though because of the kids, they couldn’t sleep when he was playing (you don’t say).
Dinner was gauffres, but not a savoury kind, just regular gauffres with various different sugars. How the teeth of the French don’t fall out, I do not know. I was still absolutely exhausted though, I went up to the guest room at the same time the children (aged 4 and 7) went to bed at about half 9. I started to doze off really early until I woke up with something on top of me and with the door slightly open. At first, I thought it was a sleepwalking child and was worried about how I would be able to get a small French child back to bed, so I sneaked out and put the light on. Turns out it was the family cat I had never been introduced to.
A lovely early morning followed, and when we got to school we were greeted by pupils that I do actually teach which surprised me and who were all chain smoking at half 6 in the morning. Oh the French. The coach journey was a mixture of sleep and awkward conversation between me and a teacher that I sat next to and a stop at a service station that the kids begged for, not because they needed the toilet, but because they needed more nicotine in their systems.
First stop on arrival was at the Palais de Justice, the place where all the court cases take place and commoners like us are allowed to walk in and watch. And so that we did. Of course I was a little oblivious as to what was going on for a little while, but I did catch on to what the case was about after a while – the exchanges between the judge and defendant were not particularly clear to be honest. This was followed by a trip to the Assemblée Nationale where we had been invited for lunch in the apartment of the questeur. The job is kind of like that of an MP, but not as important as I understand it. When we arrived the behaviour of all the kids instantly changed – when you have to go through the metal detectors and have your IDs checked on the way in to places it is understandable, but they were also really impressed with the room we were shown to for lunch and when we had our coats taken from us. Oh, and they were both confused and worried about the fact that there were 2 knives and 2 forks for everyone. Lunch was lovely, although I understood little of the political conversation that was going on at my tale. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the words and phrases, but I couldn’t really link that up to the meanings of the names or why they were laughing. Politics never was my strong point. After lunch the kids all went downstairs to smoke, and when I mean all I’m being pretty accurate – 9 out of the 45 students stayed in the room with the teachers (the teachers that don’t smoke anyway). Later on in the day I asked Céline about this and she says that it does annoy her, but you can’t stop them doing it because you don’t want them to start getting agitated and hitting each other. I can understand that.
After lunch we went for a touristy walk where I took touristy pictures before going back to the Assemblée Nationale to have a tour of the building. This is a great honour apparently, not everyone gets to do this and so despite it not having the same cultural significance to me as to everyone else there, I listened carefully and took photos of everything. The tour guide spoke really fast and everyone felt sorry for me – in fact one of the girls whispered to Maryse during her speech that I clearly wouldn’t understand anything. I did actually understand a lot of what was being said but it was like 300 years of history in 5 minutes. I saw the works of Delacroix on the walls of the rooms and went into the room where all the actual politics stuff goes on – think of the room in the House of Commons where everyone shouts and says ‘here here’ with more red velvet.
And that was the end of my day. More snoozing on the coach, smoking stops and soup for dinner. I have to mention that Pierre was wearing a mustard coloured shirt and Van Gogh’s face on his tie when we got back too. We shared photos before going to bed – without being offered a shower I have to add. So I went to school on Tuesday for my last day before the holidays a bit smelly with gross hair (thank God for Batiste dry shampoo), before coming home and having the longest and well deserved shower.
Despite some very odd things going on during this time, it is the most French I have felt. I mean, my language was better and I was even thinking in French sometimes. I guess immersion really does work best!
And now, it’s Thursday 17th February and I have just over 3 hours before I’m going home for the holidays! How quickly has that gone? Bit of packing to do (waiting for my washing to dry) and then I’m off!
