A big update

So I realized this morning that it’s been way too long since I’ve added to this blog! A lot has happened in this past week - I’ve started teaching, made some new friends, and I’ve been on a few adventures! I’ve both gained and lost confidence in my French speaking ability as well as acquired a cold (awesome!)

Teaching is quite the experience. So far I’ve been limited to introducing myself and answering and asking a lot of questions. Most of my students know my age, that I’m single and that I love food. They know that my favorite actor is Johnny Depp and that I don’t like professional wrestling. The questions they ask sometimes just blow my mind! Last week was a short week for me - I only worked for a few hours on Monday and then a full day on Tuesday. I was supposed to teach / observe on Wednesday but the teacher was giving a test that couldn’t be rescheduled. Thursday we had an assistants training and then on Friday I was told that I didn’t need to come in to work at all. So not much work for week 1! I have yet to meet all of my classes - but for the most part I feel comfortable in this job. I don’t get nervous in front of the students - and they seem to understand me very well. There is only one class where I’m a bit nervous - they’re my last class of the day on Tuesdays and they’re my youngest group (around 15 and 16). They are like wild animals, but on the positive side they talk a lot (just not always in English).

One of my students gave me a very nice tour of Orléans last week -- it was cool because it was more a tour of her life. She took me to her favorite sandwich place for Shwarma and showed me where all the kids go to make out (I’ll be sure to avoid that place!). She also showed me her old high school and where she used to live. It was really neat to see Orléans from a local’s perspective. I got to meet a lot of kids - all of whom were excited to meet a “real American.”

I’ve become very close with two assisants, Seamus from Northern Ireland and Caitlin from Canada. We are all very goofy and have lots of fun doing silly things (we seem to have a weekly tradition of sitting on the pedestal of the Joan of Ark statue). This past weekend we decided to do something fun - but we really couldn’t think of what to do. So Caitlin proposed the brilliant idea of meeting at the train station at 8:45 am and taking the next train. The rules were: the train ride had to be more than one hour and less than 2 hours; there had to be a return train available; and we had to make the absolute best of whereever we ended up. So Saturday morning rolls around and Danielle and I meet Seamus and Caitlin at the station and ended up in Bourges! It turned out to be a really lovely city and we visited their Cathedral and Palais Jacques Couer (the elaborate home of M. Couer who turned out to be the Finance minister of France in the 1440s). After we returned home we went grocery shopping so that we could have a picnic on the Loire - and while in the grocery store we discovered some AMAZING masks and ran into another American assistant - so we all picniced on the Loire with our masks.

As of today I have a rather unpleasant cold, but fortunately I never teach on Mondays - so I was able to rest and prepare my lessons for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a very long day - however I think the lessons will be fun - hopefully my students agree with me!