Frog Blog

while the food in the school's cafeteria is relatively good, they always cook the shit out of the broccoli. and there's nothing worse than limp, bleached-out broccoli.

this week the terminale students (aka the seniors) are taking the "bac blanc," a fake baccalaureate exam to test their cumulative knowledge and add to their grades. i don't envy them -- today was four hours of philosophy (but think of that for a moment-- they get to take philosophy in high school? cool!!), but it has made for a quiet campus.

i had to explain to a pushy after-high-school-english-teacher that i was not going to meet with her students to practice their english for free. there is an english "practice night" for free at a local bar every other wednesday beginning next week. i'm happy to talk my head off at that but i don't have the time to arrange another session for her kids. i could tell she was irritated but she hid it well. i talked to other assistants and a few other professors and they all thought it was ludicrous for me to meet with students, provide a service and not charge anything.

on that note, i start tutoring someone one-on-one after the february holidays. we're meeting tonight to get to know each other and so i can see exactly what she wants from our sessions. i'm interested to see how it goes, if i'll like tutoring, if it will be challenging, etc. the money will help, too.

it wasn't freeze-my-butt-off-cold today, which was a relief. it's still cold enough to want a hat and gloves, but i was able to skip the longjohns. and it's february!! yay! i really loathe january. it's always my hardest month, so i'm glad it's finished!

one of my classes went missing today. no one showed up. i think they forgot, which is ok by me. i have two more classes today and two is better than three this afternoon.

i've been missing, too, having just returned from february vacation. my mother and two cousins came to visit. they brought way too much stuff with them. trying to direct them to the train station from charles de gaulle via the paris metro system was a nightmare-- we nicknamed the experience one of dante's levels of infernos. their suitcases were jammed full of clothes they didn't wear, non-trial size bottles of just about every body wash and lotion imaginable-- they had containers for their containers. but we managed to have a good time despite their heavy bags. i've never taken so many cabs in my life.

we stayed in verona for five nights and no one really wanted to leave, myself included. the weather was great, the people nice, the food yummy and cheap, the gelato and coffee excellent. paris was busy and cold. we did all the tourist spots-- they can't go to paris and not see the mona lisa-- which wore me down after a while, especially because i've already done the touristy things. looking at paris through my mother's eyes is overwhelming and loud and expensive-- even i was sick of paris after four nights, and i love paris enough that i'm considering moving there if i can find a job.

i did not reapply for this job again next year. my teachers and school and apartment are great but i'm getting itchy feet. if i'd reapplied, i'd be stuck in this same region again, which would blow. it's too cold and there's not much to do. at least down south i could go to the beach and soak up some sun on slow days. but by reapplying i'd be stuck here.

so now i'm figuring out which direction is next. did i mention i get lost in paperbags, that reading maps isn't my forte? ah well. i will just keep doing what i'm doing and see where it leads. and now it's leading me to an afternoon tea before class begins.

my mother brought me a ten-pack of my favorite gum. i like extra's cinammon gum, too, just for the record. anyway, i popped in a stick of the green gum tonight and forgot how strong it is-- much stronger than the gum in france. but it lasts longer! an extra long time! haha

today i got suckered into taking a tour of the grand theatre in my city with a class of tenth graders. sounds like fun, but it wasn't. after about an hour and a half of listening to french, my brain turns into a useless pool of mush (this is getting better-- it used to be after about an hour of french i'd experience the mush)-- and this tour lasted about two hours and 40 minutes. an extra long time. and i think i experienced vertigo in the theatre. it's all red, with these cutouts of huge eyes in the walls (no joke) and it's rather small yet very curved, so on the third balcony, trying to concentrate on the host's face with the eyes in the background and being way up high-- good god, i felt a little... odd. shit like that rarely happens to me-- i have no problem with heights or balance and don't normally feel claustrophobic or vertigo unless i'm very, very drunk, which is pretty rare. i'm chalking it up to the combination of my overworked brain trying to figure out the french and the fact that i thought this tour would be about an hour, not almost three.

it was also a bit boring because i knew about everything the host spoke of. i've worked stage crew; i know what gels are and where the green room is and why it's green. i've seen backstage and lightboards and the rope room.

i also didn't particularly like the group of kids i was with-- they don't pay attention in my classes and trying to get them to talk is like trying to teach your cat how to use a blowdryer.

i'm always stuck with the shit kids. L, whom i work with, recently signed up for four weeks of my lessons with his shit kids-- ugh!! those are the hours that go by the absolute slowest.

it's been spitting snow all night and day and will continue to do so until the end of the week. i'm beginning to doubt if spring will ever appear. although all the shops have begun to display their sweet pastel spring clothes and some grocery stores are busy putting out chocolate bunnies and eggs. it's funny how you can tell the seasons through food and the colors of fashion.

waiting in line today at the grocery store, buying laundry soap and milk, i caught a strange whiff i immediately identified as "old lady living in apartment with 15 cats."

i love smell!! not nasty cat smell but smell in general!! it's amazing to me how smells can knock you out of your shoes or instantly take you back so some old boyfriend you had during the summer you were 12 and wore love's baby soft perfume. i love how smell either enfolds you or repells you (or sometimes, both). this particular cat smell today in the store was so insanely putrid that i couldn't stand within three feet of the woman. she was slow paying for her groceries and had lots of questions for the cashier, to whom i sent telepathic messages of pity.

the thing that gets me is that france is relatively scent-free, at least, people-wise. i smell car exhaust and the occasional bakery, dog shit, the cafeteria, etc., but it's pretty rare that i encounter an individual who smells really bad. on the contrary, usually i run into people who smell really good-- enough to make me think, oh, i wonder what perfume she's wearing, or, wow, maybe more men should wear aftershave because that guy smelled pretty good. for all the stereotypes i heard about the french smelling bad, i've been rather surprised.

now, after an hour of class with 10 teenagers, my classroom can smell pretty ripe-- and i have only lived here during the cold months, so i might change my mind come spring when more skin starts to show. but what gets me is how people don't usually know when they smell bad. i don't notice my stinky classroom until after i've stepped out and stepped back in again. i'm guessing cat lady is so used to her little furry friends that her nose is perfectly immune to the ammonia-piss-dander smell that the little kitties leave in their wake.