So yeah! I'm in France. I am a language assistant, teaching English to 6-10 year olds in public school. I teach 12 hours a week and I'm going to be doing this for nine months. I am in Northern France, in a small city called Beauvais. There is a sweet downtown, a beautiful cathedral that my street opens up onto, and an airport- which is very cool because ryanair flies out of Beauvais to pretty much anywhere in Europe for really, really cheap. So yeah, on these flights people may sometimes clap when you land but that can be overlooked.
I live in a foyer thing which exists in France for young, working people to live in sort of grown up dorms, which may seem unbearably awkward- but it's really not. I have a room and a big bathroom and we share a kitchen on the floor. There is a huge window in my room that looks out onto this massive French tree, which is pretty. Sorry, for some reason I love to state something that normally occurs and put French in front of it. For example, "Oh my gosh look at that French squirrel! It's so cute!" ahahahah. I digress.
There is a first floor and big basement with a library, coffee machine, washing machines and some other stuff. Not to mention two really nice older ladies, Isa and Dina who work at the desk at the front of the building- who already love me. Bahaha. No but they love me- Isa tells me all of her secrets about living in France like how she puts the detergent in a ball first because it just works better that way and how to get places by bus using crazy shortcuts.
Sorry, excuse me while I open my 2 euro bottle of wine entitled, "Domaine Saint Pierre le haut, vin de pays de la vallée du paradis". Beautiful.
Anyways, these last two weeks have been absolutely nuts. I left all my packing until the day I was leaving because that's what I do and I legitimately thought my father was going to wring my neck as we were leaving. Then I thought I forgot something and I had to get out of the car to look in my suitcase in the trunk, when all of my vitamins came spilling out of my backpack onto the street. My vitamins were in my backpack because I stuffed them in there last minute. A 200 pack of vitamins in my backpack, WHAT? It was chaos. I couldn't even bear saying goodbye to my cat Bojangles because that's just not my style.
I arrived on September 28th- so jet lagged because instead of sleeping on the plane I met this awesome lady named Angie. Angie is from Philly and she was going to Paris for the week with her two daughters. Turns out that she is the coolest mom in the entire world because she takes international students into her house every year- from a different country. So, she has seen the world because then these students invite her to their country- I'm talking Australia, Korea, Belgium, etc., etc. Awesome. When she fell asleep her feet were literally on me but I let it slide because she rocks.
When I got into my room. I had no sheets or toilet paper- so the first couple of days I was just buying everything I need for my room --kettle for tea (obviously), plates, silverware, soap, candles (necessary.) --- etc.
The first week summed up- My first dinner out in France was Chinese food finished with a banana split (I don't transition well.) I met my two schools and all of the students, quickly learning that basically all they know how to say in English is "good morning"- which has proven to be interesting. I made friends with some other assistants --- 2 Americans, 2 English gals, and 1 Scottish -who I love but I struggle to understand. We went to Amiens, a city further north, for orientation where I finally met up with Cecilia. Cecilia is one of my favorite people in the world and I met her in Paris when we were there for the semester. She is from Wisconsin and we requested to be in the same place for this program we're doing. Weeellll, our schools are actually an hour apart but we have all the same breaks and we visit on the weekends for party time, which is the best.
Last week I started teaching. I have 7 different classes divided between two schools. My youngest class is kindergarten level and my oldest class is 3rd-4th grade level. It'sss... interesting. I like it but it's really hard. I just make everything fun. We learned "One, Two buckle my shoe" and played Bingo for numbers (I gave out pennies as prizes which was a HUGE hit) and we played Simon says when I was trying to teach them things like "Listen!" and "Be quiet!"for which I made up silly gestures. I have each class two times a week for 45 minutes and I can teach whatever I want, because I got the hardcore contract of nine months where you are in charge. Which is pretty sweet.
This is so long. wooooah. I am going to sign off now with this last thought-
Is it ok to have a cat on a leash as several French people do in this town? Debatable.
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