Frog Blog

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.