Accomplishing Goals, or Adventures in Illegal Bars and with Pantsless Neighbors

Well, it seems that so far my New Year's resolutions/goals are on track. On Friday night I was in a neighboring town, Chauny, with the assistants there and another lost soul looking for fun in Picardy. The assistants in Chauny are a really fun, welcoming group and I had a blast with everyone! We had an absolutely delicious dinner prepared by V, hung out and talked for hours over I think four bottles of wine, then headed out to their local bar/cool place to go on weekends, Cuba. Not only does this bar break the law by still allowing smoking inside (come on France, get with the program here!) but they have an illegal downstairs bar, where we hung out all evening. A highlight included when the gendarmerie dropped by and we all had to be quiet, then prepare to tell them if they came downstairs that we were at Warren's birthday party. Anyway, it was such a fun evening, and I'm glad I'm friends with that group. It was just really nice to feel that I actually do have some friends in this country and that I'm not condemned to loneliness for the next six months.

I'm also hopefully on my way to making a French friend my age! The professor's hall that I live on in the lycee is sort of a boarding house for random people who find themselves in Soissons, so there's me and another American assistant, a professor at the lycee, two guys from Guadeloupe who are doing some kind of technical exchange or stage or whatever, and a journalist who's contract is only month to month, so he didn't want to do the whole contract/real apartment thing. Back in October I randomly ran into the journalist in the hallway after several weeks of wondering who on earth lived next door to me. I can see into his room, because I live in a corner room, and he can see into mine, so until we actually met in the hallway we had merely stared awkwardly through our windows at each other. Anyway, he asked if he could write a story on the other assistant and myself for the newspaper, so we had an interview one night and chatted a little. He is originally from Lyon and doesn't know anyone in Soissons either, so he said that if we ever were going out to do something we should knock on his door. Well naturally, we never did. I've thought about saying hi many, many times when I've seen his light on, but I never did because I was either too shy, or he turned the light off before I had a chance to go over, or I could hear that he was on the phone.

New paragraph because that one is too long already. Then on Thursday I saw that his light was on and I said to myself "Soleil, this is your chance. You keep wishing for a French friend to fall into your lap, and this one has done just that. Stop being lame and go over there to say hi!" So I mustered up my courage, walked out the door, took two steps and knocked on his door. I heard some sort of metallic noise, a pause, and then he answers the door, wearing only a button down shirt and underwear. Oh yes, he was pantsless. I'm slightly embarrased by this, and manage to mumble in broken French that I had seen his light on and just come over to say hello. He exclaims about how nice that was, then says we have to do the bise (kiss), we exchange New Year's greetings, and then he finally says "wait just a minute while I put on some shorts." You know, I wouldn't have minded waiting at the door while he put shorts on before he answered. Were the strange metallic noises I heard before he answered the door the sounds of pants being removed? Was he in there with someone, or did he take his pants off just for me? He came back out after he got dressed and we had a nice conversation about life in Soissons, French culture, and the fact that he's moving to Australia for a year starting in June, giving no indeication that there was someone in there, nor did I hear another voice. But I offered to practice English with him before he leaves for Australia, so we have an appointment to speak English together sometime next week. I hope he plans on wearing his pants. In any case, pantless or not, I really hope we end up being friends. He also said that he goes to Paris almost every weekend because all of his friends live there, so perhaps I can profiter from that and make friends who live in Paris too, and then I would have lots of French friends. Although if they are members of some weird pantsless society, I'm not sure if I could handle that. I'll just take it slowly, starting with the English date this week, and see how it goes from there.

Food, glorious food

I made myself a spinach enchilada for lunch today. It was so good I almost cried. Of course some things were missing, like sour cream instead of creme fraiche, and cheddar cheese, but it was a pretty good fake out if I say so myself. And I made the whole thing in the microwave, which is quite an accomplishment from my usual method of using like 18 different bowls and pans. Just one bowl and one plate. Nice to know that I can satisfy my Mexican craving somehow!

The monster class was decent yesterday. It's a little horrifying that some of the CM1s in that class don't know all of their colors or numbers through 20, I'll have to take that up with the maitre when I see him next. We played a game I found on the Genki English site where they have to draw cards with an animal, a number, and a color on it and then say what they have, for example, seventeen green zebras. A lot of the kids needed help. And then my other CM1 class decided that they thought hangman was too boring. What child thinks hangman is boring????

The Rentrée

My French is awesome after vacation. On Monday I told a boy in my crazy CM2 class to go get a piece of paper that I had left next to the paper cutter. Or so I thought. He returned to the classroom with the paper cutter! In my other CM2 class yesterday we were doing tongue twisters and I asked for a brave volunteer to read one alone in front of the class. Not a single kid volunteered, which really surprised me because they are usually really eager to volunteer. Finally, one boy raises his hand very very tentatively and reads the first one (it was Peter Piper). So I said "great job!" and asked for the next volunteer, and suddenly everyone wanted to read. Turns out they thought I wanted them to read the entire page of tongue twisters. Oy.

Congratulations to the maitre of the CM1/CE2 class, whose wife just had a baby. Bad luck for me, because that means he's on congé paternel now and I get the class all to myself. Normally we share this class, so that one day a week I have the CM1 and the other day the CE2. Honestly, I don't think it's a good system, I don't think the kids are learning anything. However, these kids are completely incapable of behaving, and I'd rather only deal with 15 monsters than 27 monsters. And I'm serious about this - before I had to teach them all by myself yesterday the other teachers all wished me good luck. They're very sweet kids, but they just can't sit still or ever stop talking. Luckily we're doing animals now, which kids like and is easy enough to do activities with. Oy, quand meme. I will definitely have earned a trip to the soldes this weekend!

Happy New Year!

Bonne année to all! I don't really feel like it's a new year at all, but whatever. Vacation is over now and I'm going back to work tomorrow. I have no idea how that is going to go. I hopefully picked some fun things to do with my kids, but we'll see. It will be tough to get them in learning mode after vacation.

Vacation was great. It was wonerful to see my parents and my brother, even if he was a little shit sometimes. I thought we were going to have totally packed days running around to all kinds of different museums and whatever, but as it turns out we had a lot of down time to just be together and enjoy each others company. That was really special. It was a little stressful being their only means of communicating with the world (like when they would all tell me to ask someone five different questions at the same time. I only have two ears and one mouth!). We did have a little conflict about eating though. My mom thought it was the greatest thing to go to the boulangerie down the street for pastries and baguettes every morning and have that and some cheese for breakfast. I am kind of over that at this point and I really just wanted the gigantic buffet at the hotel! Give me some nice, normal American food please!!! So a few mornings my dad made the sacrifice and had buffet with me.

Along those lines, honestly, I am sick of French food. I need something with flavor please! I have realized that I honestly prefer "exotic" cuisines like Indian, Mexican, Thai, etc. I could really use a gigantic burrito with real salsa. Like now, please.

Anyway, so I had a great time with the fam, but unfortunately they had to leave. They left the morning of the 31st, and after that I spent some time in Lyon and Dijon with two other assistants, Shannon and Rose. I was kind of blue about going, I really wished that I had bought a ticket home for the last week of vacation, but I ended up having a really good time. I really liked both Lyon and Dijon. Dijon in particular I thought was really cute. One of the best things I did thise break was go to the Muée de la Resistance (Museum of the Resistance) in Lyon. The exhibits were really informative and well put together (even if not necessarily in the most logical order). It assumed a certain base of knowledge about the Resistance, so sometimes I had a lot of questions, but I really liked it. Those who participated in the Resistance were so brave, and as a Jew I feel personally grateful to them for their work. I highly recommend the museum. I got to see a lot of churches and cathedrals and torture my poor travelling companions with art history lessons. Good times all the way around. I can't wait to travel again! February vacation is really close and I really have to start making concrete plans. Like now. Right now I think I'll end up doing Rome, Florence, Greece, and Prague.

I guess New Year's is a time of reflection on the past and planning for the future, so I'll do a little bit of that here. I'm so proud of graduating from college this past year. It was a really, really impressive accomplishment for many reasons. I had maybe the best vacations of my life with my family in Northern Michigan this summer. It was just such a wonderful, beautful time, and I can't wait to go back. Hopefully we'll go again this coming summer after I get back. Of course there have been some frustrations too. I still have these ridiculous medical problems that just won't go away (isn't it time yet after three and a half years???). My time in France has been really difficult. I've heard that it gets better starting in January and I really hope that's true.

So what will 2008 bring? In the immediate future, I really hope to make French friends my age. I also want to be a better teacher. I want to get back my optimism. I'm the most optimistic, positive person I know, and that hasn't been the case lately. I don't blame France for this, there are a lot of contributing factors, but I just want to get over this hump and back to my old self. I want to travel a lot and have as much fun as I can for the rest of the time I'm here. I guess you can call those resolutions.

Happy New Year to all, and to the other assistants, good luck with the rentrée!

Vacances

Currently in Paris with my parents and my brother. I love seeing them again, but I keep getting sad when I think about them leaving. :( Unfortunately my brother is really not able to put up with any kind of culture whatsoever, so he's being a pain. But he's cute, so we keep him around. And at least he gets in free to all of these museums that he's not enjoying.

Hope everyone is enjoying their vacation so far!

Restless

I feel like I'm wasting my time here. One of my main reasons for coming here to France, for doing this program, was to have the opportunity to travel, and that just hasn't happened. I've been to Soissons, the town where I live, I spent a weekend in Amiens, a day in Laon, half a day in Chauny, a couple of hours in Saint Quentin, and I've been to Paris a lot. That's it. I'm happy I've been to those places, but I really want to travel. I already wasted Toussaint (although there were reasons for that). My family is coming for winter vacation (only a week left now!!!) and while I'm so excited to see them, I think we're just staying in Paris. I've been there already. Then my plan is to go to Lyon for New Year's, maybe to Dijon after that. I had thought about going to see my friend Joanna in Prague but plane tickets are expensive. I need to go places! Not other places in France, I want to go to other countries. And I'm running out of time. After this break I only have two more, and I have huge list of places I want to see. I guess I just have to prioritize now. Part of the problem is that I have so little free time during the week that by the time it's vacation and I want to go somewhere it's super expensive and I haven't made any plans. Bravo to me.

I've started breaking up my list of places to go into weekend vs need longer to be there. So here's my list of places needing more time, not in any order:

London (could be a couple of weekend trips)
Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice (although canals may be too dirty))
Greece (Athens, Peloponnesus sites, an island or two) (also possible to do in summer with parents and Dad's coworkers (half of them are Greek))
Vienna, Salzburg, and Budapest
Prague
Ireland
Scotland
Scandinavia (cruise in the summer?)
Spain (although this could be dumped because there are other places I would rather go)

Anyone interested?

In Which Soleil Finds Her People, Successfully Doesn't Burn Her Room Down, and Fails at Teaching English

I have been super busy for the past few weeks. Why, you may ask? I found the Jews. Or perhaps I should say that they found me. I was connected with a lovely fa,ily, the Bs, by a friend of mine from home whose father does business with Mr B. My friend exchanged our coordonées (contact information) and they invited me for Shabbat two weekends ago. I had a really great time, they are just lovely people and have seven really nice and cute kids. They made me feel really welcome and like one of the family. They are also quite a bit more pratiquant (observant) than me, so that was interesting. Observant as in their rabbi is Lubuvitcher - you know, the guys with the beards, hats, and black coats, Mrs B wears a sheitl and only skirts, the boys have tzitzit on always, women can't lead services or read from the Torah, you get the picture. Then on Sunday afternoon, you will never believe what happened. Picture this: I'm playing in the living room with the youngest girls when a guy comes to the door. He talks with Mr B and Mrs B, and then he and Mr B come into the living area and I hear Mr B say in French "this is the American, she's 23, etc." Uh-oh. So they call me over and Mr B says "this is our friend from Israel. He knows people and can introduce you to some people." He's a matchmaker!!!!! I felt like I had walked onto the set of Fiddler on the Roof. What century do I live in again? Anyway, I sort of stuttered and flubbed my way through telling him where I live, what I'm doing in France, that kind of stuff, and then awkwardly left the room as fast as I could. So that was quite interesting. I know that the Bs meant only the best by this, and I'm flattered that they think well enough of me to find me a husband, but this is not so much my style of finding Mr Right. I doubt that the matchmaker will come up with anyone anyway - I'm 23 and past my expiration date.

Anyway, so last weekend I was back in the same community but with a different family (see how welcoming this community is? very nice) but I also went to a Hanukkah party sponsored by the congregation Kehilat Gesher, which is a Francopohone-Anglophone synogogue in Paris and more in the wing of Judaism that I'm used to. I had a great time, met lots of people, including another assistant (or former assistant) who was really nice, and stuffed myself. Good times.

Yesterday I completely raté-d my lesson with one of my CM2 classes. We're learning I like/I don't like and also the forms with you and s/he. So I picked a song, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, and made up a worksheet to practice s/he likes, because they always forget the s at the end. The kids were clueless. I understand that they didn't know how to find the answers in the song (they had to find out who was singing and then figure out you/I into s/he), okay, fine, I didn't realize that that part was so complicated for them. But I am completely horrified that they didn't understand the questions in English, and that they didn't want to answer in English. These kids have no idea what "who" means. Oh my gosh, who has been teaching them for the pzst two or three years????? They should have learned that in their first year of English! I don't know how I'm going to get them ready to take the regional English exam at the end of the year if I have to spend this much time reviewing things that they should know by now, plus the fact that it takes them so long to learn anything. I think the problem must be me. Maybe I just don't teach in a way that will make them remember, or maybe I'm not forcing them to use English enough. I know I speak too much French in class, and I'm really trying to change that, but what can I do when they give me blank looks when I tell them to raise their hands if they want to anser the question? Maybe I should just switch to only speaking English. It would be really rough, but they might learn more that way. I say might, because with these kids there is no guarantee. I don't know, I just felt like such a failure yesterday, especially because I thought it was such a great idea for a lesson. If anyone has any games or lessons for drilling into their heads 'she likes" with an s, please tell me, because I'm almost out of ideas!

On the flip side, one of the joys of teaching is that I can see every class that there's another kid who is more enthousiastic about English and tries a little harder. It's really gratifying. Kids are great.