Jan 2008

Lovely as usual, although they're almost old enough to be my parents they're really nice people and definately young at heart. They moved here from Paris a couple of years ago and are really keen to do different things, break the cycle of the "provinces"...hence the reason they've been so hospitable towards me I think. Maya the daughter is supercute and made me read from a book about horses so she could correct my French pronounciation!

Dinner last night was amazing!

Foie gras on toast with Martini aperitif

SNAILS! I had a suspicion they were going to be served but was still kinda taken aback when presented with a plate of 10 massive snails and told "Bon appetit". Yeah so basically they're cooked for like 5 minutes, covered ina buttery, garlicy sauce (was kinda worried of my garlic allergy but I'm still alive!) and brought to you in the shells. You use a cocktail stick or special forks to pull them out, but they come away pretty easily and are small enough for not too much chewing to be necessary. They were fine, I wouldn't say my favourite food but I ate all 10! Description, hmm... not at all slimey, meatier than I expected, a bit rubbery.

Roasted lamb, potato noisettes and green beans...yummy yummy yummy!

Cheese...stinky

Galette...an almondy cake

Tea/coffee

Even better than dinner was two compliments which have really boosted me:
1) being told they think my French is improving :-) this made me really really happy that they'd noticed. I even got complimented on my "u" which was always one of my tutor's bugbears with me! Woooo! Maybe they were just being nice, and this was after a couple of glasses of wine which always helps my French but yeah I'm gonna believe them.
2) Muriel said the teachers all talk about me and say how good I am as English prof. Apparently in the past they've always had problems with assistants (maybe the reason for the slightly chilly reception from some teachers in the first few days) but apparently they're pretty pleased with me!

:-) :-) :-)

Has been a pretty good week...Tuesday I ended up feeling really coldy and SHATTERED and basically spent the day in bed feeling sorry for myself, but since then I've been a new woman!

Paris is all booked which is very exciting! Leave here 2ish on Friday the 25th, meet Joe in Paris at 6, and check into a hotel near the Bastille area. We'll have Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday morning in the city and then head back after an early lunch on Sunday. I'm sooooo looking forward to it. I think soppy, coupley photos in front of the Eiffel Tower, a visit to the Louvre and a nice meal somewhere are top plans at the mo. But any suggestions of must-sees are most welcomed!

Have also booked a flight back to England for the 25th Feb to 3rd March, so I can see Joe in Bath and spend a few days at home too...Mum is pleased because just by chance the 2nd March is Mother's day so yeah I'm in the good books. I'll then come back and still have a week of holidays so hoping to make exciting plans to go maybe to the South-East or towards the coast? Biarritz? ALSO planned is a trip to Futuroscope..."The Parc du Futuroscope is a French theme park based upon multimedia, cinematographic and audio-visual techniques of the future. It has several 3D cinemas along with other attractions and shows, some of which are the only examples in the world." (wiki). Sounds AWESOME! Right up my street....not a big fan of traditional rollercoastery theme park rides but LOVE simulators.

School has gone really well this week too. Have managed to calm down my awful CE2 class and my CE1-CE2 class. A sad face goes up on the board at the beginning of the lesson and during the lesson children who are chatting in French/poking other children with rules etc etc etc have their names put up under the face and then miss out on the fun games/songs etc at the end of the class. The two really awful boys ended up writing "I like bananas" 5 times while the rest of us played pendule...I felt bad giving out lines, but I know teachers here use that and it really seemed to work, it was one of the first punishments this children have actually responded to. So yeah goodstuff.

Had a really productive day yesterday...did 3 lessons in the morning, went for a good swim (which I really needed to do!), and then got my abstract and bibliography done for my year abroad essay, « L’Europe est trop grande pour être unie. Mais elle est trop petite pour être divisée. Son double destin est là. »

In the evening I went to Lou and Lynn's with the rest of our group and we had a "degustation" of bread and wine, which fun and yuuuummmmy. Then we had our first trip to Perigueux's club scene! The first place we went to we quickly left again as we were LITERALLY the only people there, ha ha. But then we moved to the "L'ouvre-boite" and had a pretty good time. We were the only people dancing at first but there was a big enough group of us for that to be a laugh and soon the Frenchies got going to and yeah had a good night. Best bit was free entry/free cloakroom and drinks weren't that expensive either (although its all about supermarket wine first!) so will definately be going back for a dance again soon methinks.

The French are really into the New Year thing, still now, when we're almost half way through January people are wishing each other "bonne annee, meillieurs voeux"...it's another one of those nice French things really, just taking the time to say it.

Off for dinner at Muriel's tonight and maybe going to a tea festival with another teacher tomorrow!

X

Had a really good morning today. My two older classes at my Tuesday/Friday school are just awesome, actually a PLEASURE to teach them. They participate and listen which means we can have a bit of fun. One of them has always been good, the other I remember being a bitch the first week so maybe its a testimony to my teaching that they're now soooo cool?! Had a good moment in CM1 today... they were playing "Memory game" with members of the family; I'd managed to set it up in English without any French which is an achievement and as always I'd said (with massive gesture) "English only, NO French". They were pretty good at this but there was one group of three where the two boys were saying some niggly thing to the girl in French and she responds all by herself "No comprend French. Me English" and totally played up to it, refusing to understand them if they weren't speaking in English/using gestures. Was brilliant! I know "No comprend French" is not exactly perfect, but its a damn good try from a 10 year old and I dunno, just made me feel like they got the whole point of these English lessons or something. Also got an awesome reception in this class today...every single child had made me a "Bonne annee" card and the teacher, Muriel, presented me with a card inviting me to dinner on Saturday :-) and a big, hardback book of traditional French recipes so I can make stuff for my family and "my cheri" as she calls Joe when I get home! Yayness!

The younger class were pretty good too. I drew a sad face on the board and when they got too chatty or whatever I wrote their names under that and they weren't too pleased and shut up. I don't know if it will work again next time as I couldn't really think of a fair punishment to follow through with...but I left it up there at the end of the lesson hoping the teacher would deal with it. There really is something about CE2...

Otherwise though am feeling a bit ill, coldy and just really really tired. Think I haven't been sleeping that well. Just had a nap but still pretty grotty... :-(

Happy Tuesday everyone!

X

So here I am. Back in France.

Had a lovely time at home. I really do love Christmas- haven't grown out of it one bit. Loved giving and getting lots of presents on Christmas day, and all the yummy food, and christmas shopping in town on the 22st and annual get-together meal with old school friends on the 23rd, and New Year's Eve/birthday celebrations with Tom, Katie and the others....but the best of all bit this year was just being with all these people...Exeter friends, Oxford mateys thanks to a random but very exciting reunion in Exeter, Mum, Dad, Alex and the rest of the family and JOE! Poor Joe has lots of horrible exams on his mind right now so sending him good luck vibes! Unfortuanately this meant we didn't get to see as much of each other as we might have in an ideal world, but planning an awesome trip to Paris on the 25th to 27th January-his 21st/end-of-exams/our 4 year anniversary....couldn't need any more excuses! And I think I will do a week at home/in Bath in February; it's so cool having 2 week long half-terms, means can do that and still have time to travel somewhere over here, and then I'll prob hang around out here at Easter and travel a bit more and hopefully persuade Joe/parents to visit at some time.

Anyway, back to the present. So yeah Rachel and I flew back yesterday- I'd already seen her once during the hols for her 21st celebrations at Sidmouth-muchos fun, but it was cool to catch up and Rachel got herself a French-Albanian admirer on the bus back to Perigueux. I settled back into Englishness at home amazingly quickly and really feel like I've got out of the French habit...dammit why is it so much easier to lose than it is to get?! Really want to make an effort this year...but then nothing changes, also want to do more Uni work (gonna do my couple of essays soon I think, see if that gets me back in the roll), make more French friends and go swimming. But have plans for some French friends (a couple of potential language exchange people/checking out the maison des associations tomorrow) and going to pencil swimming/studying into the diary for each week. New year but old resolutions eh?!

Lesson planning tomorrow..."Buying fruit" and "Penfriend letters" I think....fun fun fun! Tomorrow is the 6th of January, Epiphany, the day the Kings came to see baby Jesus, celebrated in a typically French form: CAKE! I have to write about this because I'd hate to let down my Morge boys who apparently enjoy the regular lowdowns of what I've been eating. Yeah so tomorrow all the Frenchies (and of course me, immersed in the culture as I am) will be eating a cake- either a big round, fruity one "La couronne (crown) des rois" or an apple one "La galette des rois" which has a little trinket inside (kinda like Christmas Pudding I guess)- the person who gets the trinket will be made king or queen of the meal according to Wikipedia!

The 9th of January will also be an exciting day as that's when the "soldes" (sales) start. The sales here happen twice a year between dates specified by local government and are meant to be pretty good...may have to do some cultural immersion there too, ha ha!

Lynn and I polished off a bottle of Montbazillac, a local sweet wine today...mmmm....

Le Monde recently had an article on what will change in France in 2008 http://www.lemonde.fr/web/articleinteractif/0,41-0@2-3224,49-993716@45-4774@51-993805,0.html. The smoking ban in bars etc (as in England) came in on the 1st January, from September all primary schools will have 4 day weeks (no more Wednesday or Saturday mornings), public transport systems will have to offer a "minimum service" even in case of strike etc and all high schools will be required to have two automatic condom machines, at the price of 20 centimes per condom!

Alors, oui, Bonne annee a tout le monde et mes meilleurs voeux pour 2008!!!

XXX