Frog Blog

thoughts that are getting me past the scary thoughts:

1. pain au chocolat
2. european coffee
3. the gazillion tea houses in paris
4. the fact that i pilfered a tiny french press from work in which i will make tea bought from the gazillion tea houses in paris
5. my mother visiting in february
6. brian's arrival
7. shopping for scarves in reims
8. sephora!
9. improving my french
10. those solitary days when i have nothing to do but take a walk and think and look around.

today is my last day at work. the kids are throwing me and two other people a bash at j's house with his two dogs.

countdown. 60 minutes.

i erased the entry with my school's web address on it. contact me if you want the site. i used teoma to look up the school and "frog blog" came up as the fourth entry. i don't want to be found so easily.

dad took the week off and we've been bopping around, running errands, saying goodbye to everyone, etc. i had to pack a bunch of my everyday stuff to take to storage today from b's house. so much to do... and it's already tuesday.

i made it. please note: the keyboards here are different than in the states; some of the keys are in different places and the punctuation is hard to find.

i am using the computer at school. i don't start teaching until oct. 1 but today i sat in on a few classes. the kids, for the most part, were very nice but shy and giggly. ah, just like in america. i was pretty nervous but it went well.

my french absolutely sucks. i thot it would not but hardly anyone can understand me and the feeling is mutual. i keep waiting for my breakthru.

my studio is very tiny but free, so who cares? have yet to taste any champagne but soon, soon.

today i went to a huge, huge store; it had groceries, stuff, clothes, hairdryers, fridges, etc; it was like the hugest wal mart you've ever been to. i spent 100 euros on food, a towel, plates and bowls, silverware, etc. you'd think all places are the same; crackers are crackers, right? maybe if i had 12 hours to discern between kinds, salted, wheat, etc... it was an experience. i totally forgot that i had to weigh and stamp much of my fruit before i got to the checkstand. some things, like grapefruit, you can buy individually, but other things you have to buy by the kilo, and there is no scale at the cash register. imagine my horror when the cashier tried to explain this to me and i had no idea what she was talking about. luckily my mentor nicole knew what to do and she took the fruit back for me to weigh. there is a person in the middle of the store who weighs everything and stamps it with a barcode for the cashier. but this only happens at certain stores. guess i won't do that again. oy.

i had every intention to get up today and go to the prefecture, sort of like a mayor's office, to start applying for this card that will let me in and out of the country freely. but i slept in.

gotta go, don't want to abuse my priviledge of free email.

they're the same pretty much wherever you go. the kids here seem a little smarter on foreign topics, prob. because they are forced to more than kids in the states.

i visited 2 classes today. the first was brutal; i was nervous and no one asked me any questions. the second was better, i was more animated and asked them more questions. coming up with lesson topics should be interesting. someone suggested tongue twisters. anyone else got anything?

i did laundry today. what a joke! holy shit, i was the only one in there and loaded my clothes just fine but then had to figure out which button to push on the wall. each machine has a coordinating button to make it work after the money is inserted. before i knew it, i'd pushed some button for the soap to come out of this whole other contraption on the wall. i left a big pile of soap on the floor. the dryer was a lot easier.

i also went to the prefecture today to apply for this carte de sejour pass which allows me to enter the country freely. oy, i'm amazed i made it out alive. they have very little patience there for shitty speakers like me... but i have an appointment on oct.22 to go back with all my red tape paperwork filled out. bravo for me.

tomorrow i am going to apply for a card which allows me to eat meals in the cafeteria here.

some info about my school: there are about 1000 students in 10th to 12th grade and 2 years beyond. they are mostly women. 2 girls asked me to coffee sometime next week, and i said yes. a class told me how to ride the bus today and one of the teachers gave me some extra tickets. so far so good.

off to make dinner.

my schedule is so weird here. it's weird trying to eat enough and get to bed at the right time and get up at the right time. the sun is out today. i think i may take a walk into town and go to this chocolaterie i passed yesterday. i need to have some lunch so perhaps i will go to the bakery and grab some bread for a sandwich at home. most things are closed from 1230 to 230 for lunch.

saw another class today, the kids are so shy. i have no idea what we'll talk about when i actually have to start leading classes. luckily, i won't have more than 15 kids at a time.

whenever i type, it echoes like mad. the teacher's lounge is gorgeous... high ceilings (25 feet, i think] with arched windows and super fancy crown moulding.

i just typed this huge entry and the computer glitched and the whole thing went away. ah, the ways of internet cafes. time is money. oh well.

to sum up. feeling normal. took tour of mercier champagne house yesterday with patricia and her friends laurence and claudine. l. used to work at mercier so we got in for free! was nice hanging out with other girls my age and just shooting the shit.

i was bloody starving this morning so i bought a roast chicken from an outdoor market near my apt. i totally need to eat more protein.

man; i am so bummed my entry went away. need to breathe some fresh air and not pay this place any more money for computers to crash!!

spent the last two days in orientation, aka the clusterfuck of french disorganization and red tape pomp and circumstance. ok, felt good to write that down.

while it was very beneficial to meet other assistants in my area, i can't even tell you how inefficient the whole thing was. we spent an hour just going over a roll call, another hour and a half discussing the french school system (which should have taken 15 mins) and yet only 20 mins discussing the important things like french social security numbers, advances on our paychecks and getting our carte de sejour, which allows us to travel outside the country with our visas. long story short...

i find it so interesting how "groupy" everyone gets. here we are, with the opportunity to meet people in the same situation, and most people hide in little clusters of groups. oy. i tried to talk to as many people as possible.

another thing: each group has the same kind of people: the jackass, the "lucy" from charlie brown who knows it all, the quiet ones, the brown nosers, etc. one girl asked if we should smile in class. jesus.

and another thing: (!) when you get a bunch of people together who don't know what's going on, it just creates this amazing amount of panic and stress. most of us don't know how to apply for this carte de sejour thing; it's a complicated process full of french government, a foreign language and no uniform rules. the process varies from region to region it seems. so some people have heard what to do, and some others have snippets of information, and some don't know shit, and what is created is this mass panic where everyone starts speculating and worrying and freaking out. it's maddening.

i think shit happens when it happens here; france has the laid back attitude of italy with things like this but the french seem so much more neurotic about it at the same time.

oy.

now comes the interesting part... actually starting my job and trying to teach/engage the kids in conversation... wish me luck.