US or Bust! (Please not bust...)

I’m trying to split things up so my posts aren’t too long- so I didn’t describe my adventure in getting back here! 

I taught on Thursday until 3pm, and then Steve (my host dad) picked me up so that I could finish throwing some things in my suitcase and check in online for my flight.  The website to buy train tickets for the TGV had been down, and I was unable to buy a ticket online for a train on Thursday.  (I’d originally planned to take a 6am train on Friday, but with the strikes and protests leading to cancelled trains, I didn’t want to leave things to chance and chose to try to get to Paris on Thursday evening!)  While I’d been at school, Steve and Joelle had called the train office, who said that the train was full.  Gahhhhhh.  Not what I wanted to hear!  We decided to head to the station anyway to see if there was a chance that I could get on.  I said goodbye to Renaud, Mami, Papi, and Rex, and then saw Amaury and Cindy coming in as we were heading out.  When we got to the station, we talked to two different people- one at the information station and one at the ticket office, who gave conflicting information: first that I could just buy a ticket for that train but for a different day, and that I’d be able to get on the train that way and then that I couldn’t buy a ticket and would have to talk to the contrôleur to see if I could get a ticket on the train.  Steve and Joelle recommended I take out some money, since I’d have to buy the ticket in cash and no idea how much it would cost (eek!) and said goodbye before they headed back to Carpentras.

My train left at 6:47, so I had a couple of hours to wait… but then the 6:30 train was delayed 15 minutes and I freaked out that they were changing where my train was (since they couldn’t both be on the same track at 6:45!) so I double-checked at l’accueil.  The problem is that the trains aren’t marked in any way, so I’m never 100% which one is which.  The next train (which I assumed was mine!) came and I asked a woman working at the station where I could find the controleur.  She told me (en francais, of course) “On the train.  But just get on!” So I did… but then there was no indication where I was supposed to go or where I could find the mystery man.  I put my carryon in the storage area and briefly attempted a search, but ended up just sitting in an open seat.  When we stopped in Lyon, I debated… do I get off?  Do I stay on?  I crossed my fingers and hoped that the answer was stay on!  Luckily, at our next stop, they announced our itinerary and Paris Charles de Gaulle was on the list.  Whew!  I sat and waited patiently for anyone resembling a controleur to arrive, but no one ever did… so I arrived at the CDG stop and got off… no ticket and no problems.  I’m not sure if that was normal or not? 

Charles de Gaulle aéroport at night- not too busy :)

Les toilettes- gorgeous, right?!

Anyway, this was around 10:15pm, so I had 14 hours before my flight took off.  Charles de Gaulle is HUGE- it not only has terminals 1, 2, and 3, but also A-F of subsections of each terminal.  I had ZERO clue where American Airlines would be, so I picked a terminal at random and headed toward 2F.  At information, the woman told me that I needed to head to 2A.  I wandered around for a while trying to find out where that would be, and then had to ask someone who told me it was tout droit (straight) and that it was about a 15-minute walk.  I finally arrived at my terminal and found out where I’d eventually have to check in around 11:15pm.  I stopped in one of the beautiful bathrooms (literally- they’re so cool!) and found a pretty comfy seat to camp out for the night.  I mostly read (Roald Dahl’s Moi, Boy) and did some word games and caught maybe an hour of sleep, wrapping straps around my arms and legs and clutching onto the bag holding all of my important documents for dear life.  It was fun to watch the way things evolved through the night… around midnight, armed French national guards patrolled the halls, the people around me all conked out around 2 am (setting up newspaper “beds” and being inventive with using luggage carts to make sleeping more comfortable), 4 am brought three women running by with the ‘clack clack clack’ of stiletto heels trying to catch a bus (the first European women I’ve seen run anywhere!), and 5 am was when the airport woke up and came alive.  I headed to MacDo as soon as it opened, ordering jus d’orange, chocolat chaud, pancakes, et muffin chocolat for petit dejeuner.  The other benefit of MacDo was the free wireless and the opportunity to watch an argument between a patron and the manager, where the manager ended up shouting “Tu es folle a la tête ou quoi?!” (Are you crazy in the head or what?!)

Where I spent the night- comfy chairs :)

The line for check-in was a beast, even three hours in advance, but I breezed through because I didn’t have to drop off any bags.  Security wasn’t a problem either, and they didn’t even take a second look at any of the things I was carrying on.  Every time something went off without a hitch, my blood pressure went a little higher because I was constantly waiting for something that was going to keep me from getting home.  I found my gate and was there two hours before my flight was scheduled to take off when my moment came.  You know how you always hear how they’re paging that one customer and you want to know what their problem is?  I was that one customer.  “Passagère Awoool, passeger so-and so, etc, veuillez presenter au bureau centre” instructed me (and several others on my flight) to go to the center desk.  My heart dropped into my stomach and I gathered my things.  An intimidating-looking woman took my passport and boarding pass and told me that they had some questions de securite for me.  I braced myself for the worst, thinking “please please please let me get home!”  She looked closely at my paperwork, squinted at me, looked at the paperwork again, and… handed it back to me, assuring me that everything was in order.  I blinked and stammered, “merci!” and hustled away before she could change her mind. 

On the plane, I sat next to a girl who had been in Benin for two years with the Peace Corps and hadn’t been in the US during that time.  She’s interested in applying to the TAPIF (Teaching Assistants Program in France, what I’m doing now) next year, so we had a good chat.  The meals were pretty delish- cheese and mushroom lasagna, salad, baguettes, spreadable cheese, and cookies for lunch and then pizza, grapes, and shortbread for “a snack” several hours later- and they brought us drinks at least 5 times, so there weren’t any worries of dehydration!  We didn’t have the individual TV screens like Hannah and I had on our Icelandair flight, but they showed Where the Wild Things Are, Top Chef, and 30 Rock along with other things throughout the flight.  There was a group of 15 high school students flying from Paris to Chicago- probably for a school trip during the vacation.  We landed with a couple of bumps and were back on American soil.  

I breezed through customs and security and called my parents and lil’ bro to let them know I made it home safely.  My flight from Chi-town to the cities was short and uneventful, and I met my momma (who started crying when she saw me) at the baggage claim in Minneapolis.  I’m home, I’m home, I’m home!  :)  I’m here for part of the weekend, and will leave to drive to Iowa on Sunday.  I’m so thankful that everything worked out well and that I didn’t have any disasters on the way. 

Happy Saturday and Go Badgers!!  

Teaching? Kind of...

It’s now the Toussaint (All Saint’s Day is the English translation) vacation, which means that there’s about a 2-week break in the school period.  Kind of like an extended fall break that I was always jealous of other colleges for having!  I’m back in the United States for 5 sets of medical school interviews- more than likely the last of the interviews I will be doing, since I don’t anticipate coming back again before I’m done teaching.  I’m both excited and nervous!  It’ll be nice to be back at home and see friends and family for a little bit, but medical school interviews are nerve-wracking enough without having to deal with exhaustion from the combination of driving hundreds of miles and fighting jetlag.  We’ll see how things go!  I thought I’d do a little summary of how my teaching is going so far J 

Une carte like this would be helpful

As far as teaching goes- I think that I’ve gotten this point across, but la grève is really really affecting things.  I still have yet to meet the vast majority of my students since they haven’t been in class due to the strike (again- either they’re protesting, they can’t get into the school ground because of the students protesting, or they can’t get to the school because of the bus workers protesting) which makes teaching very difficult.  I’ve seen two different groups twice, which meant that we’ve actually moved on to “doing something” other than having me introduce myself, attempt to describe where Wisconsin is (You know where California is?  Not there… You know where New York is?  Not there… You know where Texas is?  Not there…) and answer questions that they have.  (Although at this point, I think I could hit most of the questions they’re going to ask by also informing them in my intro that I’m 22, have no boyfriend, have one brother, was not a ‘pom-pom girl,’ love American football, like France, like French food, and enjoy running, swimming, cycling, reading, and knitting!)  It is interesting, however, to hear some unique questions.  Several that I faced this last week were: Do you like the United States or France better?  If you want to be a doctor, why are you in France?  Why did you pick Carpentras?  What is your opinion on the death penalty?  Do you like Barack Obama?  and How much does medical school cost in the United States?  I thought the death penalty question was a particularly interesting one- I ended up talking to the student after class and tried to figure out why he was curious what I thought and he told me something along the lines of, “it’s bad to kill people, and I can’t believe the US does it so often.”  He was very surprised when I told him that the death penalty isn’t legal everywhere in the US and that only certain states (Texas was the only one that came to mind?) have the death penalty.  I also enjoy when the students introduce themselves to me and tell me their name, their age, and something they’d like to share (hobbies, interesting facts, etc).  I get everything from the motivated students that tell me “I love English” to a more self- depreciating “I speak English very bad” to the jokesters that tell me things like “I like… American girls” or “My dream is to go to the America… wiss you.”  To be honest, part of la grève has been really nice: working with smaller classes gives students more of an opportunity to talk out loud and less of the fear of being laughed at by their classmates, both of which are incredibly helpful for their progress as English speakers! 

One of the lessons that I liked the best this week was working with one of my BTS classes.  These are the two-year vocational programs after the students take their baccalaureate exam at the end of high school, and the majority of the boys in this particular class are interested in going into ‘automated systems’ or research and development in industry.  I introduced them to the “game” (although a 25-year old student was quick to tell me that it wasn’t a game since there was no winner and no penalties…) of ‘popcorn’ which is to encourage students to read out loud.  I pick the first person, who reads two sentences.  When he’s done, he says “popcorn!” and picks the next reader.  They seemed to really enjoy it, and they didn’t pick on each other as much as I had seen them do in the previous class, probably because they knew that they would be chosen next if they were giving someone else too much trouble.  After they read aloud, I read the page out loud to them so they could hear my pronunciation.  And since there was an error in the text, I asked them to listen to see if they could catch where I said something different than was written, which gave them extra incentive to pay attention.  As in many of my classes, there are a wide variety of different ability levels within the class.  Several are extremely motivated and read with a highlighter in hand to mark any terms that they wanted to look up later, while others try to project a “I’m too cool for this” attitude as a front for the fact that they’re much less able to read/speak in English without significant problems.  One thing that’s definitely going to work to my benefit is that the students would much rather spend the class with me than their normal English teacher- as was obvious in this class, because I only spent ½ an hour with each half of the group before swapping.  I’m not sure if the ½ the class for ½ the time strategy is what I’ll be doing, or if it’ll be ½ the class for the whole period, every other week, for the most part. 

The moral of the story is that I think that the teaching is going well when I’m actually given the opportunity to teach.  The students like me and seem to want to learn English for the most part, so the real struggle will be to just get the students in class!  I’m very hopeful that when I return, some of the retirement debate will be finished and the high school students will be done protesting.  A side note is that a student made my day on Thursday because I was walking down the hall and saw that he was wearing the “Kiss Me, I’m a Badger” t-shirt that the bookstore sells for St. Patrick’s Day J  It’s great that 10 or so of the seniors have been to Wisconsin! 

My new home town!

So… that’s my teaching experience thus far.  Other updates?  I visited the Centre d’Allocations Familiales twice (the first time, they were on strike so I couldn’t go in…) but told the woman the wrong thing, so I haven’t been able to get the forms that I’ll need to fill out to hopefully get a grant from the government to help pay for my housing.  I’ll look into it more and hopefully resolve my issue soon.  I also visited the hospital in Carpentras, which apparently offers stages aka internships that allows students to observe physicians over a certain period of time.  I asked what I need to do to apply, and the receptionist informed me that I need to submit a CV (obviously, in French).  I also had the opportunity to do some exploring in Carpentras, and found a wonderful little park that is along the banks of the river that runs through town.  I’ll definitely be spending a lot more time there from here on out!!

I love love love water- this is my new favorite place :)

For now, I’m really happy to be home J  I’ll post later this weekend about my adventure in arriving here- you can look forward to it!  If you’re in the states, let me know if you want to get together in the next two weeks and tell me when you’re free.  <3

Canard!

Life in France can be described in many ways, but I will definitely say that I find things much more laid-back here than in the US.  For example, last Wednesday on my day off, I joined a group of 4 professors (along with the 4 ½ year old son of one of the profs- adorable!) for lunch at noon.  The French tradition is the inverse of American tradition- rather than eating a substantial breakfast (pancakes, eggs, sausage, etc) and a sandwich for the lunch, as we might do in the states, they have a very small breakfast (maybe just a morceau de pain avec du beurre/piece of bread with butter) paired with a lunch that may consist of as many as 5 courses.  This meant that our lunch gathering lasted from 12:00… to 4:00!  The funny thing is that I didn’t realize that so much time was passing when we were sitting there and talking.  The teaching team has been incredibly nice and welcoming, which is refreshing.  I was a little bit worried about the stereotype Americans have of French people- that they’re snobby and elitist.  However, that’s not what I’ve found! 

I definitely had more of a chance to experience some of the stranger sides of French culture last week… Laura, Caitlin, Bessie, and I headed to Caitlin and Laura’s place in Orange on Thursday after our formation because we had to be back in Avignon on Friday for our medical visits and visa validation.  (It’s theoretically much easier to commute to/from Avignon from Orange than Aix-en-Provence or Carpentras, which is where Bessie and I are from, respectively.  This wasn’t necessarily true, as the normally super-to-easy use train system was… you guessed it… on grève.) Anyway, Caitlin and Laura live in a BEAUTIFUL apartment that is attached the house of a super cute, adorable French lady named Claire who is probably in her mid-70s.  Claire recently changed her name and was worried that the paperwork wouldn’t be right for the visa appointment, since her electric and phone bills and driver’s license have different names on them, so she wanted to drive us to Avignon.  This sounded great- especially since the train wasn’t operating and rather than a 15-minute train ride, we would have had an hour-long bus ride- but turned into a bit of a train wreck.  (Pun intended ;) ha)  Claire had called someone at the visa office, who told her that we needed to go there at 9.  However, we knew that we had to go to the medical visit first, since we had to have a verification of health in order to be verified.  Gotta love the paperwork!  Claire was a hoot and a holler in the car… passing others and muttering things like canard! (literally ‘duck’ but with the intention of ‘ass’) and avancez, avancez! (go, go!) to other cars around us.  She wouldn’t listen to our attempts to convince her that we needed to go to the medical visit first, and pulled over to ask for directions to the visa office.  She found the street without much of a problem after getting directions, but accidentally ended up on the wrong way of a one way.  What do you think is the best way to deal with such a problem?  Turn around 180 degrees and back down the road, of course!  (sarcasm sarcasm…)  We hit several things (curbs, fences, etc) as she backed down the itty-bitty-little-road but narrowly avoided 3 cars.  Say what you will, but I remain convinced that one-way streets care about what direction your car is going, not which direction it is facing. 

Anyway, when we arrived after that fun and excitement, we confirmed what we’d known all along: that we needed to go to the visite medicale first.  The lady at the visa office gave us directions for how to get there… and somehow between the lady giving the four of us directions, us understanding the directions, and then telling them to Claire, something must have been lost in translation and we ended up getting lost on the way to the clinic.  Keep in mind that we were supposed to be at the clinic at 8h30 for visits starting at 9h00, and it was around 9h45 at this point.  Luckily, I had looked up the directions on my iTouch before leaving the house (since I thought we had to walk between the two) and also had a paper map that I’d picked up from the post office of Avignon.  Between the two, I was able to figure out approximately where we needed to be and convey that to Claire.  We ended up near the clinic, but didn’t know where it actually was… and turned around several times to investigate roads without any luck.  We asked Claire if we should stop to ask someone for directions (If I haven’t mentioned this before, Claire speaks zero English and doesn’t hear well, which added to the excitement!) and she told us several times, “He won’t know.  He’s Arab.”  and seemed very sure of herself- which we thought was an interesting assessment.  We convinced her we should try, and Caitlin got out to ask.  Another man who was at the same bus station was able to tell us exactly where to do and Claire explained things as, “Of course he knew where to go!  He’s black!  A black!  He knows where the immigration office is, of course!”  (again, fascinating to see her view of things!)  Anyway, after all of that excitement, we ended up at the clinic. 

However, that’s not the end of the adventure!  It was now after 10:00, meaning we were running an hour and a half late.  In typical French fashion, they seemed to not even notice and took our documents and sent us to the waiting room.  I was called first, and a French man in his 30s ushered me into an examination room where he told me in a combination of rapid French and body language that I needed to take off all of the clothes on my upper body and that he’d be back in a minute.  OK?  Zero mention of anything resembling an examination gown.  So there I am, sitting topless just waiting for this man to come back… when he opened the door again (very wide, so I’m glad there weren’t people out and about in the hallway) he brought me over to a white screen and had me put my arms by my side and get friendly with the screen.  Again, lack of anything resembling a lead screen for my lady parts- hopefully the single xray exposure won’t affect my ability to have children somewhere down the road.  A friend told me that it’s fine, “you’ll just have mutant babies!”  which wasn’t exactly reassuring.  J  I thought I was done, but the man told me he needed to make sure it was OK and not to get dressed again until he came back.  I got out a Sudoku to make the fact that I was hanging out topless less awkward, but he returned quickly and told me that everything was A-OK.  After re-dressing, I was then shuttled up to a different area, where a nurse took my weight and height and had me cover one eye, then the other, and read one letter on the eye chart.  I’m pretty sure it was an M and I said N with my left eye, but she didn’t seem too concerned and maybe just thought I couldn’t speak French.  I then met with an actual doc who asked me a wide range of seemingly  random questions:  “Have you had a recent TB test?  Have you had a tetanus shot?  When was your Measles/Mumps/Rubella shot?  Do you need dental surgery?  Have you had malaria?  You don’t smoke, right?”  He was nice enough to switch to English for part, because when he started talking about yellow fever, the look in my face must have told him that he’d lost me.  He had me take off my shirt to take my blood pressure and listen to my hearbeat, which seemed unnecessary, but whatevs.  He looked at my lung xray, gave my paperwork a stamp, and sent me on my merry way.  I have the impression that I could be dying of many sorts of illnesses or have several broken bones, or be blind, and that I still would have been given the go-ahead, since there wasn’t anything obvious wrong with my lungs.  There must have been some sort of TB outbreak at some point for all of the abnormal attention focused on my lungs! 

Visa validation was easy and simple for me, and we didn’t get lost on the way there since Claire had already driven there 45 minutes earlier.  Unfortunately for Caitlin, here vignette (the thing that gets added to the visa so that you know it’s been validated) had been sent to Marseille by accident, so she had to go back to Avignon to get it.  I’m beyond pleased that I was able to get my visa validated in one day because I was worried that I wouldn’t be let back in the country after the Toussaint vacation, where I’m returning to the states for a whirlwind medical school interview marathon!  I’d also like to add that Claire was incredibly sweet and it was wonderful of her to drive us to and from Avignon, and I don’t mean to portray her in a negative light in the least J 

As far as other French traditions… la grève is full in force.  On Monday, the students did something I’ve never seen or would even have believed existed, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.  They voted on whether or not to block the school.  Wait, what?  Yup.  You read that correctly.  Turns out that 92% of the students voted for the blocus, which meant that starting on Tuesday (and continuing indefinitely?) they are blockading the school, so only the students that live in the boarding school and the professors (and me, the people that use a back entrance) are in class.  I’d be really curious to talk to more students about it… one of my classes and I chatted about it briefly, and one of the girls told me that she wanted to vote ‘no’ but knew that it would be pointless.   Some other students voted ‘oui’ but then just stayed at home and didn’t participate in the demonstration.  The result?  I didn’t improve on my attendance from last week… ZERO of the students I’m supposed to teach were in class on Tuesday.  I ended up joining three other classes that I won’t typically see, so the time wasn’t a loss, but I’m still frustrated to not have the opportunity to make a lot of progress.  Regardless of what happens with the retirement decision, I hope that the blocus period is finished when I return to the France so that I can actually teach some students something! 

This post has gotten much too long already, so I’ll wrap it up here and finish up my updates when I’m back in the United States!  Hope you’re doing well J  Bisous!

La grève... oh la la

How the French are feeling about Sarkozy

Bonjour, tout le monde!  I was traveling for part of last week, and hence didn’t have a lot of internet access time.  I’m not sure if you’ve heard this from other places, but there’s a lot of striking (in French, “to strike” is faire la grève) going on because of Sarkozy/the government’s decision to raise the age of la retraite (retirement; interestingly enough, also the same word for ‘withdrawal,’ as in from an ATM) from 60 to 62.  I don’t pretend to fully understand the situation, but the system in place has been something like people that are allowed to retire as early as 60 with a limited pension and if they work until 65, then they get a slightly larger pension… but now it looks like it will change from 60 to 62 and 65 to 67.  Understandably, people that are in their 50s are not too pleased, because it’s difficult to plan to retire in another year or two and then realize that you have to work another several years before you can retire!  There are plenty of younger people that are thinking ahead and are none too happy, but it’s also especially interesting to me that students are a huge part of la grève.  I guess some well-respected French people have called young people to take action, and there’s also the argument circulating that old people take young people’s jobs.  Therefore, if grownups have to work another 2 years before retiring, new jobs won’t be opening up for students in middle and high school?  Something along those lines.  What does this mean in terms of my position teaching in France? 

Several things.  I’ll get to them in a minute.  First, I should let you know that the French strikes are nothing like the strikes-that-rarely-if-ever happen in the U.S.  They are ‘official’ and the government knows about them in advance and warns the public about what the details will entail.  For example, the workers for the buses and trains have been on strike, but they realize that there are a select few people that need to be able to get around, so there are lists of the bus and trains still in operation posted outside of stations.  Also, I haven’t seen them, but apparently people in certain jobs (we were discussing paramedics, but I’m sure it’s true for other professions as well) still do their jobs, but wear huge bright signs that they’re on strike and only do the minimum requirements of their position to make sure that things still run as needed.  With that being said, last Tuesday was a general strike that was widely publicized on and before Monday. 

I taught on Tuesday starting at 10:00.  I didn’t use the main entrance, which I kind of regret, since I apparently missed out on seeing the blockades that students had set up.  The way that students strike is by not going to school.  However, most of them actually go to school grounds, but they set up barriers and stand in front of the entrances so that no one (including other students) can enter the buildings.  I went in a backdoor entrance for professors, so I didn’t see all of the shenanigans.  This comes back to the point about how the strike affects my job- two of the professors that I work with were on strike, so I had to go to different classes and I really have no idea what happened to their classes.  (Was there a sub?  Did the few students that came to school wander aimlessly in hallways and try to join other classes?)  The lack of teachers is one effect, and the lack of students is a second one… I had 6 total classes during the day, with the following attendance: 

Class One (Premiere, aka juniors)- 6 students out of around 25

Class Two (Premiere, aka juniors)- 3 students out of around 30

Class Three (Terminale, aka seniors)- 1 student out of around 35 (who, by the way, has a British father and speaks flawless English and hence doesn’t need to practice speaking with me)

Class Four (BTS, aka two-year vocational program after graduating)- 0 students out of 9

Class Five (Seconde, aka sophomores)- 5 students out of around 35

Class Six (Premiere, aka juniors)- 9 students out of around 25

Total attendance: 24 students out of approximately 159 = around 15%

The low attendance was due to students striking (both the students who didn’t go to class and the ones who couldn’t get onto the school grounds because of the other students blocking entrances) and the bus workers striking, which meant that students who live out of town weren’t able to commute.  It made for an interesting day, to say the least.  I have to admit that I enjoyed having small groups.  It’s much easier to encourage students to speak and to avoid distractions when there are fewer élèves (students) in the classroom.  However, for the classes that I hadn’t met yet, it will be difficult to get things started in the next several weeks, since we may have to re-do introductions and Q&A time.  I did find out that the school lunches are pretty tasty!  For 2.50 (in euros), students and professors get a salad, a main dish (this week was couscous, with various topping options, one of which included female deer as the meat), bread, fruit, a bag of biscuits/crackers, and a dessert.  Tuesday’s dessert was an Isle Flottant, which literally translates to “floating island.”  I’ve never seen or consumed something similar to the states… the best way I can think to describe it was that the ‘island’ part was sort of like a whips yogurt- very light and fluffy but not as chewy as something like a marshmallow- while the ‘lagoon’ part was like vanilla pudding that was more runny (less thick) than its American counterpart.  All in all, I’d consider the combination a bargain and will likely eat at the school on the days that I work.  I finalized my schedule, and will be working Monday afternoons from 2-6, Tuesdays from 10-6, and Thursdays from 9-3.  There are no English classes on Wednesdays, so I don’t work then, and I was able to coordinate with the professors to get my Fridays off, which is very nice and gives me a lot of flexibility as far as traveling goes! 

I had the opportunity to witness a little bit more of la grève action on Thursday, when I headed to Avignon to participate in a day of formation, aka training, for my position.  (Which seems like it more logically would have come before I started… but I think that logic’s not always the way things are determined here!)  First of all, traffic was a nightmare; Joelle drove me and Amaury (my 17-year old host brother) and Cindy (his girlfriend) to Avignon, because the two of them had class.  She said she thought one of the reasons it was so bad was because people were worried about bus strikes and decided to drive instead.  The trip should normally take 35-45 minutes, but we left at 8:00 and didn’t arrive until 9:15!  When I arrived, I saw that the students were on strike at the school and had set up huge barricades of garbage cans and were blocking the entrance to the school I had to enter.  I called Laura (another assistant in Orange) to find out where I was supposed to do, and she told me that if I told the students that I was an assistant (not another student!), that they would let me in.  When I got into the school, I joined 17 other assistants who teach English in college (middle school) or lycee and live/work in the Department of Vaucluse.  It was an interesting makeup: 7 Americans, 3 Canadians, 6 Brits, one New Zealander, and one Kenyan.  Some parts were definitely helpful demonstrations of possible activities we can do with classes (I’m definitely choosing at least one song to teach this year!) and some parts were pretty pointless to do with a group of native speakers, but all in all, I think I came away with some helpful suggestions for the year.  It’s pretty much sink or swim from here on out! 

Protestors outside the walls of Avignon

My last experience was on Saturday, when there was a general demonstration in Avignon.  Caitlin and I got off the train at 10 to see hordes and hordes of people outside, just standing around, holding signs, and playing music.  When I returned to catch the bus home around 1, there was no one there- just a few cardboard signs left behind!

I’ll leave it at that for now, and fill in more details as more of the strikes and demonstrations continue.  More details to come shortly!

Boys boys boys

The Antonov 124- 2x the width of a 747

I’ve ‘officially’ started teaching, as the 8^th was prise en function day for all the assistants.  My day started at 9 am, with a group that I’d actually seen once before, when I stopped in and sat in on class last Tuesday.  It was a BTS class, which is the two-year vocational program after the bac for students interested in pursuing technical and mechanical certification of some sort, which is one of the reasons why the class is entirely boys around the age of 19-20.  Normally there are 7 students, but 4 were absent, so there were only 3 students.  (How about those subtraction skills of mine?  That’s 17 years of math class right there ;) ha)  We watched a program that Alain (the prof) had recorded about an enormous cargo plane, the Antonov 124, and picked out key words.  Sometimes Alain will teach two different versions of how to say things in English- like that it’s a ‘truck’ in the US but a ‘lorry’ in the UK.  Interesting!  He (Alain) also passed me a personal note from a student that I’d seen last week… looks like I have admirers already J

I had a bit of a break between classes, and Alain and I sped over to the market to pick up something to eat for lunch.  I didn’t have a clue what to get and was quite honestly overwhelmed by all the choices of different meats so I let him pick for me- I ended up with a container of fresh-out-of the oil frites (French fries- although I hear that they’re technically not French… ), a thick slice of beef, and a stuffed tomato.  We at a couple of fries on the go and headed back to the school, where I met Mme Burani, the teacher for the next two classes I joined.

My second class of the day was a class of terminale students, which means that they’re in their last year of high school and will take the bac in the spring.  This group in particular is taking an extra English class every week and since they’re in an engineering track, they read scientific articles and then present them to Mme Burani and another prof, who is a professor in some sort of science/engineering field.  They’ll have to do the same thing for their exam (20 min with an article for 10 min of presentation/questions in English) so it’s really good practice.  Like my previous class, they were all boys- but this time 17 or 18 years old.  They seem like a really good group and have a pretty high level of English.  Some of them actually came to visit Wisconsin on an exchange trip last year since lycée Fabre has a relationship with Wisco!  I was glad to hear that they’ve been to my stomping grounds too. 

My 'apple'- interesting.

When class was done, the students left to head to lunch.  I had another class that started at 1 (which Alain said is pretty unusual, since students are usually still eating then) which leaves me with only about a 45 minute break between classes, an extremely short lunch break by French standards.  Most of the students have about an hour and a half to eat lunch, which makes our half-hour open campus lunches from RLHS pale in comparison!  My third and final class of the day was again a group of BTS students, most of whom are interested in working in ‘automated systems.’  There are 17 boys (seeing a trend here? I didn’t have a single female student all day... haha) between the ages of 18 and 25 in the class, but most are 20 and 21.  We spent a good portion of the class doing intros, Mme Burani asked all of the students to introduce themselves individually and tell me something about themselves- usually their age, town of residence, future plans, and hobbies.  Most were pretty standard answers (the vast majority of the class either wants to work in automated systems or research and development within industry) but a couple of jokers threw in that they liked to “drink beer… very cold beer,” play rugby, “have fun with my friend,” and party.  Similar to the previous class, they’re going to have to read an article and then present it to two examiners for their final exam, so we spent the hour talking about an article they’d read.  Interestingly enough, it was about stopping global warming by eating less beef, since eating veggies or even chicken/pork rather than beef is easier on the environment because those options cause less carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases to be released into the environment.  The article ripped on Americans for eating too much beef, but I had to laugh because my personal experience has been that I’ve probably eaten more meat in the last 3 weeks than I had in the whole year prior to that at home… but my fam doesn’t eat much red meat J  One of the students laughed and gave me an ‘apple’ that he’d gotten from the cafeteria, which he assured me is actually ok to eat but just looks funny since it has more of an appearance of a potato.  Another student asked me if I had plans for the evening because there was a group going to the bars in Avignon.  Mme Burani stressed to him that I don’t have a car, so if he brought me, he’d have to bring me back to Carpentras.  She said that she thinks that she thinks that it’s a good idea for me to do things with him and some of the other boys, since I don’t know anyone my age here… but I feel like it raises both ethical and safety issues on my part.  I don’t think I would have respected TAs in college that came out partying with me and the idea that I have to trust someone I don’t know to drive me half an hour to another town and to bring me home seems a little sketchy, although I’m sure that they’re all nice guys.

Well, enough of the serious stuff!  All in all, everything went well for my first day.  It’s definitely going to be an interesting year and my experience isn’t going to be anything like those primary teachers with the little kiddies J  I’m meeting with all of the English profs on Wednesday next week and hopefully I’ll be able to talk to them about changing my schedule a little bit so that I’ll be able to get outta town every now and again.  This weekend, Amber and Alexandre are coming to visit! 

Have a wonderful day and enjoy the Badger game J  Bisous!

It's not over til... the panties go flying!

Laura, Evi, Caitlin, and Catia hiding from the rain with me!

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind week for me here, but not in the same way that it has been for those of you celebrating homecoming at UW!  (Woot woot- it’s Gopher Roasting Time ;) haha)  I had a chance to meet a ton of assistants from all sorts of different areas (and teaching different languages- English of course, but also Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, and Arabic) within my Académie, which was really neat.  Things kicked off with a visit to Avignon, where all of the Department of Vaucluse Assistants were invited to a little get-together.  After waiting ~15 minutes not knowing what we were supposed to be doing, someone came to herd us into this little room with a bar and some tables, where a couple of the bigwigs said a brief welcome and shared a little bit about our area, which they assured us is the most beautiful in all of France.  (Totally unbiased, of course!) We waddled back out to an ‘opening’ around the same size as the small room, we had just been in, where they proceeded to take a picture of the group.  The five or so important men stood right up front and there was no attempt to have people sit/kneel/croutch etc to make sure everyone was seen, so I’m pretty sure that only about a quarter of the assistants were actually in the picture.  They gave us a cadeau (present), which turned out to be a pretty cool book about the Provence region.  That was apparently the end of any organized gathering, and they let us loose on the open bar and sandwich/appetizer buffet and encouraged us to mingle.  I did our best, and I met some really sweet new people, which was good because they’re the people that will be closest and easiest for me to visit when I get lonely here in lil’ ol’ Carpentras.  Keep in mind that this ‘started’ at 12 (but actually more like 12:15) and it was probably 12:45 or so by the time the mingling started.  At five after one, a French woman that I think worked in the building came out and told us that they needed the room and we had to head on our merry way.  That was all well and good, but the tour of Palais des Papes which had been organized didn’t start til 4… so we weren’t quite sure what to do in the meantime.  Caitlin and Laura (assistants from Orange) and I dropped our bags off at Marianne’s Avignon apartment.  (Marianne’s also teaching in Carpentras, but she’s actually going to live in Avignon and will commute for the most part.)  We headed to la gare (the train station) because not everyone had bought their tickets to Marseille yet.  We talked about what we thought the meetings and things in Marseille would be like, and one of the assistants made us laugh when he told us about a mental picture that our night at the hotel was going to be like a wild lock-in with “panties flying and everything” J  We split up a little bit to grab some lunch (mmm- Chez Nani’s!) and then Laura, Caitlin, Evi, Catia, and I headed over to Palais des Papes.  We took some pictures with the lovely modern art elephant and checked out le jardin des Doms before it started to rain pretty hard.  We ended up semi-stranded at jardin des Doms, and waited it out for five minutes.  When it let up a bit, we made a run for it and made it to the Palais des Papes foyer before the real downpour started.  I’m sure that some people chose not to come because of the rain, but there was a pretty sizable group that came, and they let us in for free and gave us the audioguides to listen to things.  I’d been there pretty recently, but there are plenty of things to listen to and I also tried to pay a little more attention to the parts at the end that I’d just breezed through (there’s only so much old, empty building that I can take… trust me, you’d understand!).  Everyone went through at their own pace and then Caitlin, Laura, and I stopped back at Marianne’s to grab our stuff (and pick up some wine at Nicolas, because good French wine makes everything better!) before catching the train to Marseille.  Miss Hannah greeted me when I arrived and brought me to her lovely new apartment, where I met her roomie Becca.  They were happy to see me and probably equally as happy to see the wine I brought ;) 

Les voliers- yes, please!

Hannah and I enjoying the view

Tuesday I had to open my French bank account, which sounds difficult but was actually a complete breeze.  They’d had us send in the documents ahead of time and the Rectorat had verified my appointment and residence in France, so I didn’t have to deal with the whole “prove that you’re living here” rigmarole I would have had to tackle otherwise.  I handed my passport to a woman who photocopied it and then ushered me into a waiting area with the packets of my papers that they had received earlier.  The banker lady click-click-clicked through multiple things on the computer and I was in and out in probably 10 minutes.  Check!  I took the opportunity to check out the Vieux Port area a little bit, and got a kick out of the vendors with the fresh fish on the side of the street.  I was also amazed by the HUNDREDS of sailboats- wish I could go out on one!  Maybe when I find myself a French sugar daddy, he’ll take me out ;)  I’m way jealous of the Marseille assistants for being on the water- it’s the one thing I wish I had in Carpentras.  Tant pis, I guess!  I wound my way back over to Hannah and Becca’s place, and Becca left to pick up Brooke, who is yet another Marseille primary assistant.  I’m looking forward to hearing the three of their stories about the adorable little French children they teach!  There was talk of omelettes for lunch, but then they discovered that they had no spatula, oil, or butter.  So we hit up MacDo for lunch instead- epitome of class, right?  I dropped my overnight bag off at the hotel where the rectorat was putting me up for the night and we met up with Caitlin and Laura, and subsequently hit up a delicious gelato place near Vieux Port.  We all went with nutella flavor, which was definitely not a disappointment!  We then had to meet as a group for all of the American assistants to take a bus to the General Consul’s house, where we were having dinner.  The bus ride was awesome- we drove right along a route that an assistant, Katharine, said was really popular for runners (some people actually DO run in France!  Not many, but a few…) and I can see why- it was Gorgeous, with a capital G.  After passing through the two armed guards that verified passports to make sure we were on the guest list for the evening, we got to check out some equally amazing views from the Consul’s house.  It was so nice of her to host us!  We had a buffet for dinner, and the good food there was topped by some of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten.  We also met a couple of diplomats from the Paris Embassy that were visiting Marseille (which may/may not have been related to the 12 suspected terrorists that were arrested in Marseille earlier in the day?) and one of them gave me his card because he told me that he had also majored in French and Bio and had been pre-med and had started med school, but then joined the foreign services because he was bored with med school.  He told me to give him a call if I ever get bored J  We eventually took the bus back to the hotel, where my temporary roommate Katy (Apt), Kevin (Aix-de-Provence), Mike (Istres), Hadley (Salon de Provence), Caitlin (Orange), Laura (Orange/Bollene), and I hung out, drank some cheap French wine/beer and chatted about everything from chick flicks (Love Actually was partially filmed in Marseille) to our towns, piercings (more so with the girls), and football (american-style, more so with the boys).  It was a nice way to wrap up the day!  Caitlin and I also took the opportunity to call our parents to give our parents the heads up about the terrorist news and let them know that we’re doing well J  Random side note- we’re thinking we might hit up Egypt together on one of our breaks, which I’m really excited for!

The ballet performance- one involved crutches...

Wednesday morning started well- we had no idea what was to come.  The continental breakfast was lush, and we were there early, which meant we were some of the lucky few to get some nutella before it was all gobbled up.  We knew our destination for the day was close, but we were consulting my iTouch and reviewing the directions one more time to make sure we didn’t lead others astray when one of the assistants who returned from last year, Kyle, cracked us up by pointing out that if we unwrapped ourselves from our devices and actually just looked up, the words “Universite de Provence” were plastered in enormous letters on a building to our left.  Definitely one of those times when technology hindered rather than helped!  When we arrived, we were greeted by one of the most disorganized chaotic situations of the trip.  We had to turn in our dossiers, but half the assistants seemed to be missing this or that paper and didn’t know what to do about it/how to fill it out, and some people’s schools hadn’t even given them the folders, let alone helped them fill it out.  There were also lines that double-checked paperwork and made sure that everything was set to go, whereas others (aka mine) just said thanks (merci in real life, but you know what I mean) and good luck with your year.  On the bright side (?), they did say that if there’s a problem, we’ll get an email that tells us that we’re not going to get paid for an extra month or so.  No news is good news!  We had some jus d’orange and café and did some more mingling… and some more mingling… and some more mingling, as we had to wait for all the assistants (nearly 300 of us) to finish everything.  We arrived at 8:30 and didn’t head in to listen to a lecture until nearly 11.  I have the feeling that things in France don’t always run quite on schedule J  We had a really long, fairly repetitive presentation and then the head of the whole Academie came to say a couple of words.  It was a little sad because the speakers figuratively lost people pretty early, when they started going on long tangents rather than following a powerpoint presentation, but after not too much longer, they started literally losing people, as assistants from all areas of the room climbed awkwardly over chairs, benches, and their neighbors to escape for a bathroom or water break.  We’re not talking one or two, but 15 or 20 at least.  It was pretty comical to watch from the rear of the room!  After the lectures, we caught a… unique? ballet performance out on the square and then ate a lovely lunch in the university cafeteria.  It was another one of those days where I didn’t really know what I was eating, but it tasted great!  After a question/answer session that was had some good info and a lot of non-pertinent/repetitive info, we were free to go.  We bid A bientôt to new friends and went our separate ways, with a lot of assistants leaving to catch a train home.  I had the opportunity to spend one more night, and Hannah and I profited by enjoying a fabulous dinner date.  We tried to eat at the Love Actually café, but it looked like they only served drinks (not food) in the evening, so we ate a restaurant nearby.  It may have been one of the best meals of my life, and that’s not an exaggeration.  For only 16 euro, we had three courses: Le pizza- 4 fromages, La lasagna bolognaise, et le dessert- tiramisu for Hannah and three scoops of ice cream for me.  We decided that we’ll have to come back for a reunion trip when we’re old ladies.  I’m sure that we’ll eat there again sometime this year though, before we get too old and decrepit! 

Notre Dame de la Garde- high above Marseille!

Yesterday (Thursday) was my last partial day in Marseille, and after leaving Hannah, Becca, and Brooke to enjoy their day of formation for primary teachers, I set off to walk to Notre Dame de la Garde.  I hadn’t been walking even five minutes when a French man (not old man by any means- I’d guess 24?) rushed up to me and gave me bisous (the French ‘hello’ kisses that I’m sure you’ve seen in movies even if you’ve never been to France) before I really knew what was going on.  He started talking to me in rapid-fire French, asking me how I was and if I remembered him and if I’d missed him.  I stammered that I didn’t think that I was who he thought I was… and that we’d never met before.  He seemed a little shocked, but recovered well and said that I made his day anyway.  He asked what I was going and I told him I was visiting Marseille and asked how his day was going.  He and his dad had had some sort of car trouble and the car was leaking gas, so he had one of those yellow gas containers and was on his way to go try to find some.  He asked if he could give me his info so I could look him up on facebook and we could meet again so I wrote down his name and said goodbye.  (Before you start worrying- I have no plans to add him or see him again!)  I’d love to know if he actually thought I was some French person he knew or if it was just a pickup line he was dying to try.  Could definitely go either way… if I picture an American man that ran up to give a random girl a big hug before realizing that she wasn’t who he thought she was, I picture him being pretty embarrassed and wouldn’t expect him to flip it around and ask to meet up again, but I’ll be the first to admit that I definitely don’t understand French men a lot of the time!  Notre Dame de la Garde was awesome- I could literally see the entire city.  I also found a great little jardin on my walk back to meet up with the girls, which would definitely be my refuge if I lived/worked in Marseille.  I caught Hannah, Becca, and Brooke on their lunch break and we had a little picnic lunch in the square with sandwiches we picked up at a shop on the side of the street, and then headed to the St. Charles station to catch my train back to Avignon.  There, I was just in time for the bus to Carpentras and I called the Patris family to see if someone could pick me up at the bus stop.  Renaud was at home and called Steve and Joelle, who were already in town, to let them know to swing by.  I had a great time vising the sea and meeting new people this week, but it’s nice to be home and not living out of a suitcase again for a bit!  Today was my first ‘official’ day in Lycee Fabre and I’ll post that separately after a bit. 

I climbed 344 steps!  A Russian woman took my pic :)

Happy Homecoming and Go Badgers!!  Missing you all and hoping for a Goldie loss J  <3 Allison

France has trucks too- kind of...

 This didn't post when I tried yesterday morning, so I'm copy/pasting and trying again!  There's not a ton to report, since the last several days haven’t been too terribly eventful.  On Wednesday, Joelle and Steve were heading into Carpentras to do something for Amaury and they dropped me off in town.  I bought Marie Claire in French (reading the magazines helps me learn “useful” French phrases, not just the stuff in textbooks) and several pelotes of yarn to knit some mittens when the knitting bug hits me in a few more weeks.  I ate dinner with the family- and learned that Cedric loves pommes de terre aka potatoes (literally “apples of the earth,” an expression I really enjoy) and Joelle made a delicious cherry crumble for dessert.  Wednesday was also the first day that I was able to go out and start running again.  I picked a road that I knew and just ran out and back, but I’ll probably look for some different routes, since there are quite a few cars and the shoulder isn’t too big so there’s not much between me and them. 

On Thursday, I thought I’d head out for a run bright and early but then thought well… maybe I should look at the documents that I have to fill out for tomorrow.  Unfortunately between having to look up info and find papers and figure out what the heck they were asking me, I spent several hours working on the paperwork and alors… pas de run.  After finishing all of that nasty paperwork, I decided to read Sherlock Holmes: le chien des Baskerville and headed outside.  It was gorgeous, so I put on my suit and Steve opened the piscine (pool) for me.  The water felt so good!  I miss swimming and will definitely have to spend more time in the pool J  I made some tasty Farfalle Rapido (or that’s what I’m going to call it anyway- mom makes Fettucine Rapido but I didn’t have fettucine…) with chili peppers and garlic for dinner- mmm! 

Friday was my first “official” day at Lycée Fabre, so I head there bright and early at 9am like it said on my emploi du temps (schedule) to meet with the man who was going to verify my paperwork.  But… when I got there, he was in another meeting, so I sat and waited patiently.  I met two of the high school boys, who were waiting to talk with another one of the directors about a soiree they were planning for next week.  It was reassuring that I was able to have a conversation with the two of them and understand what they were saying for the most part (I did have to tell one of them, “sorry- I don’t understand your question!” once, and then he explained it so I knew what he meant) and they said I spoke French very well, which I think was a good compliment, because I feel like teenage boys wouldn’t necessarily just think to say that.  I feel like I’ve talked about people who say that I speak French well multiple times, which is not at all because I think I’m some sort of amazing, but more so that I’m really relieved that they actually know what I’m saying!  J  Anyway, I left for a little bit and met with the English professor who’s ‘supervising’ me since I knew he was done with class at 10, and he sent me back to the office to finish the paperwork and said we could go check out the market when I finished.  Luckily for me, the man I was waiting for (his name is Alain) was in his office when I went back and he was able to run through and help me with the questions that I had.  When I returned to see Alain (the prof- there are two Alains, and I know it’s confusing!), he said that he didn’t have enough time to head to the market but pointed me in the right direction.  He also showed me the door that I have an e-key for… it makes me feel like a secret agent or something to have this special secret back way in ;) haha  I explored downtown a little bit, and found the market, which happens every Friday in Carpentras.  It’s hard to miss!  It literally takes over part of the city, which is pretty sweet.  I bought a new watch, which I thought might be useful!  When I got back home, I accidentally ended up taking a nap because I feel asleep while reading a book.  I hadn’t slept very well the night before (Kaits, I dreamed that you got hit by lightning and died- so please stay away from tall buildings!) so I guess it was understandable.  I was able to find a less-busy (but not in a creepy, someone could get me way) running route, and I think there are several options to branch off from there, so I’ll have plenty of options! 

Marianne cranking open her window :)

On Saturday, I met with two of the other assistants in Carpentras, both of whom are working at the other lycee in town, Victor Hugo.  Marianne’s an English assistant like me (and comes from the ‘other’ UW, the University of Washington) and Maria is a Spanish assistant from Spain.  We met for petit dejeuner (breakfast) in downtown Carpentras and just sat and talked for awhile before going on a little promenade around the city.  They showed me their studios, which are right next to where they’ll be teaching- it’s a short commute!  It’s nice to know that there are other people in the same situation in the same city, and I hope that we’ll be able to get together on a regular basis J  I stopped by the supermarket on my way home to pick up a few things, and ran into Steve and Joelle!  It was a nice surprise and since they drove me home, it meant that I could buy some more milk instead of just the one container I was planning to get.  It doesn’t expire til December… we’ll see how that goes.  I also bought two new shampoos- those of you who know me well will know that more shampoo makes me very happy!  When we got home, I finished Sherlock Holmes and caught up on the latest Grey’s and Private Practice episodes.  Saturday is Renaud’s day to make dinner and last week I had let him know that I’d help him if he wanted.  He decided to make couscous, so I had the chance to spend several hours with Renaud and Joelle, making dinner for the whole crew.  I don’t think I was all that much help (although I did chop up some navés?, which are some sort of French vegetable, and tomatoes) but I really enjoyed just having the chance to hang out and chat.  We jammed out to some excellent tunes, ranging from French singers that I don’t know to the Beach Boys and Lady Gaga.  Joelle had bought some really delicious pastries for dessert, and Cedric told me that none of them had sugar added to them, but they were sweet from honey and coconut and other sweet ingredients.  Yum!  I followed the Badgers/MSU gamecast, and that’s all I have to say about that. 

Rart of the car show- probably the biggest vehicle ever in France

Yesterday (Sunday), I ran early and then spent time outside (eating lunch, reading a magazine, emailing my momma) enjoying the beautiful day.  In the early afternoon, Joelle and Steve brought me to an American vehicles display in a nearby town.  Renaud followed on his motorcycle, and we met Cedric and a friend there.  The boys are crazy about motorcycles, and there were tons of them there- it was fun to see how excited they were.  There were also cars, and it was funny because some were classic cars like I’d see at a car show in the states, but some were just big trucks like I’d see in the RLHS parking lot J  I think they were there because they’re so rare in France.  The streets are narrow and they wouldn’t fit very well in a lot of places! 

I’m heading to Avignon tomorrow for a get-together with other assistants in the area and then will be taking the train down to Marseille to see Miss Hannah Bailey (!!) and do some more meet-and-greet and logistical things required of me.  We have meetings and whatnot til Wednesday, and I’ll return Thursday home here.  Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me in the meantime! 

Me and Maria, the Spanish assistant

Wishing you all the best J  <3 Allison