Laura in Laval

2006-08-09T21:39:00.000+02:00

To have a look at the world, at people’s daily round — no matter what anyone says, it’s like a living book, a second education.
-Nikolai Gogol, "Dead Souls"

I'm not sure if anyone out there is still reading, but I came across this quote last week and thought it would give the perfect sense of closure to this blog.

I was looking back at some of my -many, many- pictures today and I realized that as much as I complained about being placed in a tiny French city and about the challenges of keeping busy in such a boring town, I loved my experience. I'm glad I did it and I don't have any regrets.

I just received a letter from one of my students today asking me how I was doing, if I had returned home safely, and if I could read French (duh). My mom saw the letter and said "wow, you must've really made an impression on those kids. Doesn't it make you sad that you won't see them again?" And it actually did make me sad, some of the kids were awesome and I wish I could go back and see them next year, kind of watch them grow up. I won't only miss the kids, I'll miss my whole existence in Laval. It was, if nothing else, a relatively stress-free nine months and an amazingly rewarding experience.

Onwards and upwards!

Au Revoir Laval

2006-07-01T14:04:00.000+02:00

Today's my last day and I'm almost done packing!

I'm off to Russia for a week and then back to France to the beach at La Rochelle.

I'll be home in just over two weeks! See you soon!

2006-06-27T17:20:00.000+02:00

A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch

This has nothing to do with Laval or with my life here, but I read about it in the New York Times and I think it's funny. Silly little things like this make me excited to go back home!

Allez les Bleus!

2006-06-23T20:29:00.000+02:00

This is my favorite commercial right now. It's (obviously) for the World Cup and is basically showing an English guy, Swiss woman (and man?) and a Spanish guy all chanting "Allez les Bleus" in support of the French team (les Bleus) just so that they can get a ride in the Toyota.

It was a very tense atmosphere here tonight when France played Togo. If they didn't beat Togo they would have been eliminated (much like the Americans had been a few days earlier). The French team has been playing so badly that I've taken to chanting "Allez les nuls" instead of "Allez les bleus." This week at dinner (now eaten in front of a huge screen showing the matches) I was joking at how poorly France had played in a previous match and one of my French friends just looked at me with a very straight face and said "Am I laughing Laura? There are some things you just don't joke about ."

Since a lot of people get pretty riled up about the French team in the World Cup I've taken to instigating a bit. This week I kept asking my students "so who are you going to support when France loses on Friday?" If ever they come back with a comment like "well the Americans are already eliminated" I have the perfect response: "C'est normal, we're pretty crappy at football, nobody expects us to win. But France....you guys won in '98...."

It works everytime!

France is playing Spain next. I'm not actually convinced that they're going to win, but it's going to be LOTS of fun to watch with the Frenchies.

"We're leaving next week"

2006-06-22T09:18:00.000+02:00

My days in Laval are numbered and I've been running around nonstop trying to get everything done. Tessa and I were running errands in town the other day and the guy at the video shop asked if I wanted to put more money on my account with some new promotion they had going on and I replied "oh, no, c'est pas la peine. we're leaving next week." He said "oh, the trip's over?" Umm...he's seen us spend long amounts of time in his shop trying to decide what to rent since January. Does he really still think we're tourists? And what tourists join a video club in a foreign country anyway? I don't hold it against him though, he's a sweet guy (unlike the aforementioned evil bakery lady).

Next stop, the gym (full discretion: this is only my second time stepping foot in the gym since early May and I didn't even go to exercise). Sebastian - aka my personal trainer- was really happy to see us. I think he assumed that we had left with the rest of the English girls because he hadn't seen us in months. It took a fair amount of coaxing to get Tessa to even go with me to drop off my last payment (60 bucks down the drain...) but Seb didn't even give us grief about not going anymore. When we told him we were leaving next week he said "so, the adventure's over, huh? You guys will at least come see us once more before leaving" I took the summer schedule and said "maybe I'll come by for a class....but I probably won't."

Next week - the last one in Laval- we're having a going away party and we were trying to figure out a day to have it. One of the Frenchies said "no, not next week. let's do it in 2 weeks" and I said "in 2 weeks it'll be too late." When Tessa heard this she said "Laura, you realize, in two weeks it'll BE TOO LATE! We'll be gone!" We find funny ways to bring it up to each other like "in 10 days I'll be on the train to Paris and you'll be on the ferry to England!" or "so what if they're only showing "The Break-Up" in VF (French)? You can just see it at home in English in 2 weeks!!" Can you tell we're eager to get out of here?

As excited as I am to get back home, I think I'm actually going to miss this place (or at least some things about this place). It's just as I was walking down the street today on my way to run errands -after 2PM of course when everything opens up again after lunch- that I realized how accustomed I have become to life here. Not working on Wednesdays, not running errands from 11:30AM-2PM, only being able to get milk at the supermarket and nothing being open on Sundays - all of this has actually started to seem normal to me.

Anyhow, no more mushiness on the blog. This past month has literally flown by and I'm sure these next 10 days will too. It'll be sad to leave here, but it will be AMAZING to go home! My story's not over yet though, I still haven't told you what I've been doing these past few weekends and I've got plenty of blogging left in me.

My boulangère hates me

2006-06-08T22:03:00.000+02:00

The lady who works at my bakery is by far the most unpleasant person I've encountered in a French bakery (and trust me I've been to lots of them). The problem is that her baguettes aren't even that good and her pain aux raisins was the worst I've ever had. The one day I finally had the nerve to stand up to her and ask her for a baguette that was less cooked (aka less burnt) I thought she was going to breathe fire in my face.

Since I had run out of food in my room, I had no choice but to get a sandwich from the bakery today. I asked for the simplest thing, a ham and butter sandwich. I know this can kind of sound weird to the uninitiated, but it can actually be a quite yummy sandwich. As I was eating my sandwich I kept thinking how buttery it was, but it wasn't until I was almost finished that I opened up the sandwich to see just how much butter there was. It was then that I decided that my boulangère might be trying to kill me for standing up to her.

Does this look like a normal amount of butter to put into a jambon beurre sandwich?

If it's Wednesday...

2006-06-07T22:44:00.000+02:00

then you know I'm definitely not working. Primary schools are closed on Wednesdays around here, so I took advantage of the fact that I was flying back to Paris from Dublin on Tuesday to stay the night in Paris and get my tourist visa at the Russian Embassy the next day. After paying 58 euros for the privilege of visiting Russia for a week, I met up with my friend Corinne for lunch. Afterwards I wanted to see the latest Almodovar film Volver but didn't have enough time before my train back to Laval so I decided to go to the Cinémathèque Française instead to see an exhibit on Almodovar. After trekking all the way across Paris, I arrived at the Cinémathèque to find that it was closed because the workers were on strike. Vive la France!

The day in images

What I wanted to do with my afternoon:

What I ended up doing instead:

All in all, it was a lovely day. The visa process was less stressful than it always is at the French Embassy in New York, it was nice to catch up with my Parisian friends who I hadn't seen in ages, and the weather in Paris was splendid. I had a great afternoon on the grass at this really charming park at Bercy. I'll catch the exhibit and the film when I'm back in Paris next week to pick up my visa.

A Tough Day at the Office

2006-05-30T23:02:00.000+02:00

Another school trip. This time it was an outing to play a little "Swin Golf." Sometimes my job can be so taxing .

School Trip

2006-05-24T21:07:00.000+02:00

Today I accompanied one of my classes on a school trip. In the morning we went to a "medieval times" sort of place and in the afternoon we went to a town with Roman ruins.

I went with the teacher who makes me feel the most uncomfortable of all the teachers I work with. I've mentioned this teacher before, he sings in a really high pitch and thinks he knows English better than I do. In fact, just last week we had a bit of a tiff over the importance of capitalizing the first letter of the months. He always pretends like he's going to let me lead the class but in less than 5 minutes is giving orders from the back of the room or standing behind me and writing the words I'm having the kids repeat. He's actually a nice guy and has invited me to eat at his house a couple of times. His wife is really nice and told us we could stop by if we ever needed anything. But still, he's not my favorite colleague. It also doesn't help that he has taken to calling me Sarah lately (the name of last year's assistant).

Anyhow, the trip was fun even though I spent most of the time at the medieval place comforting a student who was hysterically crying because she was scared of animals and there were horses and donkeys in the show. I felt so bad for the poor girl and was pretty sure that I would have to end up carrying her, but in the end she got over it and actually was able to go near the horses! In the afternoon at the Roman ruins the children were literally sitting and leaning (and sometimes climbing) on the ruins. This didn't seem to phase their teacher and I had a hard time communicating -in French and to 8 year olds- the importance of NOT stepping on archeological ruins! The most troubled child that I work with (and believe me there are plenty) decided he would throw one of his fits at the ruins because he didn't like that the teacher had pulled him off one of the walls. After this he decided he would not do any work (the kids had to draw what they saw) and that he would run away from the teacher and all around the ruins yelling "Je suis libre." ("I'm free"). When I wasn't trying to catch him I was busy trying to suppress my laughter. This child is really cute but really troubled - he often tips his desk over and has threatened to jump out the window. I've also seen him with ink all over his face after trying to eat his pen. The teacher refers to that time of the year as the time when "Donovan used to drink his ink."
Despite all the terrible things that he does and the fact that he is really not well, I kind of like the kid. He wanted to sit next to me in the bus and so I let him and he told me stories about his chérie:
On n'est plus ensemble, elle sortait avec un autre depuis le début....j'ai fait tout pour la récuperer. Je lui ai même fait un licorne (We're not together anymore, she was going out with someone else the whole time...I did everything I could to win her back. I even drew her a unicorn).

This kid is 8 years old and his chérie is 6 but I somehow managed to not laugh in his face.

In the afternoon I was left alone with all 27 monsters (and yes, after they were fed they became monsters) for a few minutes while the teacher went to get the bus. Between telling the kids to stop running around the thermal baths and keeping crazy Donovan out of the sarcohphagus I had my hands full. I won't lie, I seriously wanted to hit a lot of those kids. At one point I couldn't take it anymore and yelled "SIT DOWN." The mimicked me but they understood and in case they didn't, I said it in French too. As soon as I got them all to sit down the teacher came in to find them all seated (almost) calmly. I wish he could've walked in when they were running and being little jerks.

It was a long day, here are the photos to prove it. The flowers I have in my hand are from the kids who picked them in the Roman ruins. Aren't I a lucky girl? And, yes, the children - despite my best efforts- are sitting on the Roman ruins.

Weekend in Laval

2006-05-22T00:44:00.000+02:00

Saturday night I went to dinner with 3 of the guys from the foyer. Most people go home on the weekends but 2 of them had stayed here to revise for their exams. The 3rd guy was a new guy who had shown interest in being part of our little group here at the foyer, so we invited him along. The guy seemed nice enough at first, but then there were little things he would say that would just annoy me. At dinner he decided he wanted to practice his English with me. I had no choice but to agree, so the following (painful) exchange occurred -please read the boy's lines with the heaviest French accent you can conjure up:

Boy: euuuuh where euhhhh have euuuuuhhhh you euuuuuuh travel?
Me: umm, I went to Prague, Belgium..
Boy (interrupts): euuh I euhhhh travel euhhh with euhhh my euuuuh school euhh to Majorque euhh in euhhh 20-02
Me: two thousand two
Boy: euhh yes euhh it was beautiful euhhh there were comment dit-on des chemins qui descendent vers la plage?
Me: paths leading down to the beach...oh wow sounds beautiful. (switching back to French) So, what's everyone ordering?

If that was painful for you to read, please imagine how much fun it was for me to live. His volume when speaking in English was at least a few decibels higher than in French and people were staring at us and I am not at all exaggerating with the "euhhhs" between every word. Every. single. word.

After dinner we hiked up to a beautiful park that overlooks most of Laval and we went to Laval's museum. It was Museum Night throughout France I think so it was free to go in. At the park we played on the little kids' toys and had a blast. There were a few little kids there and they were not happy that we were there. One kid who couldn't have been more than 5 years old said to us "mais arrêtez! vous allez le casser!!" (stop, you're going to break it!) Here are some pictures from the park (these were taken at nearly 10 at night)

Today after a 12 mile bike ride Tessa and I stopped for our mid-afternoon post-bikeriding snack. I settled on a chocolate chip cookie. It went down like this:
Me: un cookie pepites au chocolat (one chocolate chip cookie)
Girl: d'accord (ok) at least 30 seconds passed and as I started to wonder out loud how it could take that long to put a cookie in a bag and I turned to see the girl confusedly coming towards me holding up a cookie
Girl: euhhh is 2 for 1
Me: pourquoi pas? je prends deux (why not? I'll take 2 then)

The poor girl was embarassed because she hadn't realized that I spoke French- to be fair when I ordered a "cookie pepites au chocolat" there were about 1.5 English words and 1.5 French words in that sentence and the rest of the time she just heard me speaking in English to Tessa. As she was ringing up the cookies she said "vous parlez bien le francais, alors!" ("you guys speak French well"). Poor thing! As we left the store we commented on how this was one of those rare times where the French were being sweet about us being Anglophones and just genuinely wanted to practice their English with us. We were also quite proud of her knowing the phrase "2 for 1." The warm sentiment quickly passed and as we walked home we (rather immaturely) imitated the French in our funniest French accents:

euhh, you....want....cookie? I share cookie with you!

Lost In Translation

2006-05-21T23:44:00.000+02:00

In the summer of 2006 I visited France for the first time. I took a two week intensive French course with my sister and two cousins in Besançon (eastern France). The rest of our time was spent exploring Paris (love at first sight, but anyone who knows me can tell you that). One of the sights we visited was the Cité des Sciences at the Parc de la Villette. Lonely Planet said it was a must-see and, being a 17 year old naïve traveler, who was I to argue? At this museum there was a planetarium to which we excitedly purchased admission. We sat down in our seats and got ready for the show.
When the show began my first thought was "oh crap, it's in French!" I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but I guess I just imagined it would be just liked it was at the Hayden Planetarium back home, my only frame of reference for planetariums. In retrospect it seems silly that I would be surprised that the show was in French but something that happened to me this week makes me realize how far I've come with my studies in French.

On Wednesday night a bunch of us from the foyer went to see a play put on by an amateur group because one of our friends was in it. I really enjoyed it but a funny thing happened during the play. At some point about 15 minutes into the whole thing I realized that I had not been phased by the fact that it was in French. I was just following the story and paying as much attention as I would have were it in English. There was no extra effort on my part to understand what was being said. After the play had ended everyone was talking about it and they turned to me and said "how was it? Did you have trouble understanding everything?" There were of course some thing that I had not understood, but I just used my imagination to fill in the blanks.

Ever since most of the English girls left it's often been just me and the Frenchies at dinner/hanging around the foyer and I am completely unphased by the fact that these conversations are always in French. What's even nicer is that some of my (French) friends told me that when I speak it's just as if any French person were speaking to them and that they don't change the way they speak just so that I can understand. I thought that was really sweet of them to say. When I watch French TV or movies it's almost like when I watch stuff in English. Obviously there will always be some things that I don't understand, but I think I've come a long way from the naïve girl in the planetarium quand même!

In other news....

A few weeks ago in Spain, Vicky and I stumbled upon a fairly recent episode of "Lost" dubbed into Spanish. I cannot stress how much we love that show and how happy we were to see it on Spanish TV. The episode focused on the Korean couple's flashbacks so many of the exchanges were in Korean with Spanish subtitles. Vicky, being Korean-American, had no trouble understanding the Koreans speaking. I read the Spanish subtitles with ease. Then when they would flash back to the island the people would be speaking in Spanish to each other. Everytime this happened either Vicky or myself would comment about how we weren't expecting them to speak in Spanish. We were too used to hearing them in English for the Spanish to be natural but when they had spoken in Korean and it was subtitled in Spanish this was more familiar/less surprising to us.
Vicky's one of the few people (if not the only person) who can identify with the issues of growing up speaking one language with your parents, speaking/learning English at school and then learning French. It gets a little confusing after a while - as evidenced by the fact that I recently gave some poor Dominican tourists in Paris directions in a stunning/unintelligible (?) combination of Spanish and French!

Fun!

2006-05-13T19:46:00.001+02:00

We (a group from the foyer) are taking a trip down to the Bassin d'Arcachon (near Bordeaux) at the end of this month and we managed to get some association to lend us a mini-bus for free in exchange for us going to wash them on two Saturdays. So this morning we had to wake up nice and early to go wash minibuses.

It was a cloudy day so it wasn't really fun to be playing with water, but we still had a fun time. There were only 5 of us including Tessa and myself. We had to move the minibuses from one side of the lot to the area where we were washing 3 of them at a time. Of course I couldn't help them move the buses because I can't drive stick and they were all stick. Tessa got to help them even though this made one of the Frenchies "nervous." Just as I was thinking to myself how much I'd like to be able to drive stick Tessa yelled "Laura, I have an idea!!" She walked over to me and said that she should teach me how to drive when the boys weren't looking! I, of course, was quite fond of this idea.

So, we both got in an already cleaned minibus and she drove it to the other side of the lot to pick up another one. As she drove she explained to me how and when to shift gears and let me try. Now, I once tried to learn how to drive stick with my Dad and the car stalled at least 3 times before we even made it to the end of the street because I wasn't comfortable with releasing the clutch and accelerating quickly. But this time it was much better and I managed to move without the car shutting off (ok, so maybe it shut off once). I was really happy but since we were in a very narrow space surrounded by vans so I didn't want to push it too much.

Later on in the day when we were a little bored of washing cars and of being bossed around by one of the boys we decided to take one of the vans on a little test run around the lot. This time I was able to shift from first to second (and eventually third) gear without stalling the car! There were several hilarious cases of Laura pressing the brake instead of the accelerator, but nothing/no one was hurt. I even practiced going in reverse and backing up the van into a tight space to be washed. I did such a good job and it was SO MUCH FUN! Later on when the car was ready to go back I got to drive it and I even parallel parked it between two other vans! All with a stick shift minibus!

Can you tell that I had a good time?

Due to a minor dispute over us excessively beeping the horns on the vans, the Frenchie who had driven us there decided that we were going to walk home. Since he refused to get in the car until we got out we kind of had no choice but to walk home. It was only 3 kilometers (just under 2 miles) anyway and we're used to walking a lot these days. Luckily one of the other Frenchies came to our rescue and picked us up but not before we had walked 20 minutes and had the chance to take some fun pictures:

Coucou, je suis là!

2006-05-11T09:29:00.000+02:00

After two weeks of vacation I'm back in Laval!

Quick vacation re-cap:
Prague, Belgium, Amsterdam, Pays Basque (Spain/France). More details to follow.

It was nice to get back to Laval (it is home for the time being) after being gone for what seemed like forever. Most of the assistants had 7 month contracts that ended when vacation began so now in Laval there are only 3 of us assistants left (out of the original 16). It's really weird to come back to the foyer and not have the English girls here. Only Tessa and the Australian assistant are still in Laval. Since Tessa doesn't live at the foyer and we hardly ever see the Australian girl, it's like I'm the only one left. Last night we had a dinner in someone's apartment and I was the only assistant there with all the Frenchies. It was nice but a little odd. Plus, all the Frenchies really miss the English girls and are constantly going on about how sad it is that they're gone. It is sadder without the English girls than I thought it would be, but Tessa and I have lots of things planned to keep us busy.

Getting back to work has not been easy at all. I just don't really feel like it. I hope it passes. The little kids were really happy to see me on Tuesday and I gave them the Starbust candies that were sent from home (thanks family & Davin) and this officially sealed the deal as Laura being the COOLEST PERSON EVER for these little kids. They were so happy to have candy that came all the way from the United States. Some kids are even going to paste the wrappers into their English notebooks!

Goodbye...we'll miss you!

2006-05-08T13:59:00.000+02:00

Just before vacation we had a little soiree to say goodbye to the Alannah, Jenny & Jo who had finished their contracts and were soon heading back to England. The Frenchies had approached me a few days earlier asking me if I could help them practice the lyrics to "I'll be Missing you" or "One" and I (thankfully) convinced them that trying to sing in English was not the best idea as it would be really tough for them and would inevitably lead to laughter on our part. They settled on a French song and toyed with the idea of creating tee-shirts. I didn't hear anything else about it until the night of the party.

All of the English girls (myself included) were asked to step into the other room as they had prepared a surprise for us. Here's a picture of us waiting in suspense:

When we came out all the Frenchies were wearing matching shirts each with their name on it. They gave us shirts with our names too. It was really sweet of them. After we each did bisous with each of and every one of them to say thank you they said that they wanted to take a picture of just the assistants in our shirts together. So we posed for the picture. Yohan, our fearless leader, said to me "Laura put your camera down for the picture." I should have known that something was up then. We posed for the picture and they told us to step closer. We stepped closer. "Ready? 1-2-3 AHHHHHH" Instead of taking our picture they sprayed us with water guns. I think the following picture captures the moment best:

Why am I so bad about updating my own blog?

2006-04-20T18:33:00.000+02:00

Spring is in full swing here in Laval and it's absolutely wonderful. Thanks to daylight savings time the sun now sets sometime between 8:30 and 9:00PM! The weather has been steadily improving and I'm happily sending my heavy jackets back to NYC. The past few weekends I've been away from Laval. I went to Nantes to see Vicky one weekend and another weekend we went to Angers to spend the day with a French girl who used to live here at the foyer. Above is a picture of us in Angers.

I haven't updated in a while because I've been "busy." Busy for me these days is having more than 1 thing to do in a day. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it can honestly almost be a full-time job trying to run errands here - no place is really open before 9 or 10 and then you have to assume that everything will be closed for lunch from noon-2PM and all day on Sundays/Mondays and possibly Wednesdays. Plus, I walk everywhere so that takes time too. I'm not really complaining, this is just the explanation I thought up to justify using the phrase "busy" to describe my life.

Anyhow, last weekend was Easter weekend and we took a trip down to Bordeaux for a tour of the vineyards and the city. The temperature was in the low 70s (22-25 Celsius) and it was so nice to be in the sun. The vineyard tour was really cool and interesting. We visited several chateaux and at the last one we saw one of the owners was the one who gaves us the tour. She's really passionate about what she does (the vineyard has been in her family for years) and it shows in the way she describes the whole operation. A good time was had by all despite the fact that at one of the tastings we managed to make wine go flying onto some man's jacket.

This weekend our vacation starts and I'll be gone for about 2 weeks. After much deliberation, Vicky and I have finally decided where to go. I'll be seeing Davin in Prague for the first 4 days (yay), then Vicky and I are heading to Belgium with another assistant from here, Virginia. After Belgium we're headed down to the Basque region. We'll be visiting both the French and Spanish sides. It's not my dream vacation and it promises to fully bankrupt me by the end, but I think it'll be cool.

Despite the fact that I only work 12 hours a week, I'm quite ready for a break from the kiddies. Today in class I nearly cried out of frustration with one class that just will not ever stop talking. I told their teacher that unless we can separate the class into two groups I don't want to work with them after the vacation.

That said, the kids have come up with some real gems lately. Here are the highlights:

-I gave tests in one school and each test had a bonus question.
Question: What language is spoken in the United States?
Answers: For the most part the kids responded correctly with "anglais" or very interesting attempts at spelling "English." One kid fell for the trick, she responded "Americain."

Question: The city of New York is located in which country?
Answers: All sorts of funny spellings of "Etats-Unis" (United States) and two very special answers: the Netherlands and (all-time best answer) Africa.

You heard it here first, folks. New York is in the country of Africa.

-Another student raised her hand to ask me the other day "Is New York in England or Germany?"

- Obligatory 50 Cent question of the week:
Kid:Do you see famous people in New York?
Me- Sometimes
Kid - Have you seen 50 Cent?

-I have been showing kids American and English money lately. When I asked the kids who they thought the person on the one dollar bill was (George Washington, fyi) they all kind of looked at me blankly. Then one kid exclaimed: "It's Charlemagne!"

-This one's not mine, but it's too good not to mention. Jo, an assistant at a college (junior high) asked the kids who the Prime Minister of England was. One kid - rather seriously- said "I know, it's Phil Collins!"

And, I'll leave you with this little exchange that I had with a kid in the back of a classroom the other day while I was observing the class. The class was 5th grade but this kid was in 1st grade and he was sitting there because he hadn't gone swimming with his class (yes, they go swimming for gym class). The teacher was going around to all the kids in the class and having them repeat the days of the week. The little kid turns to me and says :
Kid: Do they do this all the time?
Me: Yes, it's for English, they're practicing so that they can speak better
Kid: What are you doing here?
Me: I'm here to teach English
Kid: How do you know English?
Me: I learned it in school...uhh...I'm from the United States, we speak English there
Kid: How do you know French?
Me: I learned it in school too
Kid: In America...uhhh..the United States, is there the (mumbles something unintelligible)
Me: No...what?
Kid: Yes, they have the FBI in America
Me: (laughing) Oh, yes, they do
Kid: I want to join the FBI when I'm older
Me (still laughing) How old are you?
Kid: 6....6 and a half. I'll be seven in April.
Me: That's soon, Happy Birthday!

At this point I had to cut this really adorable kid off because I was sure that our whispering was disrupting the class. I really would've liked to have stayed and talked with him a little while more. He seemed smarter than most of the kids I work with usually.

Scenes from Laval

2006-03-28T13:10:00.000+02:00

Since the weather has finally started to get nice around here we've started going on long walks on Sunday afternoons. Last week we walked to the forest I had gone to on bike the previous week and this week we went walking in the opposite direction along the river. We didn't get very far because a lot of the paths were flooded by water and practically impassable.

Saint Malo

2006-03-22T17:13:00.000+01:00

This past weekend we went up to "the beach" for a day. We took the train about an hour and a half north to the town of Saint Malo in Brittany. It wasn't exactly warm enough for the beach yet, but I think we all have cabin fever and just wanted to pretend that it was Spring already.

Saint Malo is near Mont Saint Michel and and is similar in that when the tide is out you can walk out on the sand to the nearby islands. Not trusting that I wouldn't slip on a rock/we wouldn't make it back before the tides changed, we contented ourselves with walking to a litte island with a fort on it that ended up being closed. It was a windy day (see photo below) but we had a great time climbing the rocks and walking along the ramparts of the old (fortified) part of town.

So even though all we did was walk around the beach and the ramparts we managed to work up an appetite(it doesn't take much with us).

Brittany is crepe and cider country so there was no doubt we would be eating crepes. We had the most delicious crepes in a charming creperie with a really friendly owner. The crepes were certainly the highlight of the day.

the color purple

2006-03-21T20:20:00.000+01:00

You know how sometimes if you say a word enough times it starts to sound funny and you begin to doubt that it's even a word? It has happened to me a few times before and it happened again this morning.

After we formed a huge circle around the class and played "The Farmer in the Dell" (I was the nurse, thank you very much), we reviewed the colors we had learned last week. The teacher found that their pronunciation of "purple" was slightly off and so he decided he would have me say it and have them repeat it one by one. All 29 of them.

Now, we do this one-by-one repeating thing all the time, but something about it was different today. You try listening to 29 French children try to pronounce/butcher the word "purple" and tell me if it doesn't start sounding funny to you.

This next bit has nothing to do with school, but I figured I'd mention it. This morning I woke up and was a little bit confused and apparently very hungry. I woke up in the middle of a dream in which I was standing at the counter at the bakery across the street and counting my change so that I could buy a pain au chocolat. I was really looking forward to eating the yummy chocolate filled croissant but then I woke up and realized that it was all just a dream. Needless to say, my usually uninspiring bowl of oatmeal was especially boring this morning.

Repas Anglophone

2006-03-16T13:45:00.000+01:00

In theory we are supposed to have a theme meal every month at the foyer where I live. I don't think we've had one since October, but someone decided that March would be the month for the English themed meal. Being the only American here, I automatically get grouped with the English girls, so instead of being an "English" meal it was an "Anglophone" meal.

We decided on a pretty basic menu because no matter what we suggested we knew we wouldn't change the opinion of the Frenchies that English food is bad and that American cuisine consists solely of hamburgers. It was also a bit of a challenge to find things that could be produced in mass (for 40 people) and still taste good.

The Menu
Starter: Caesar salad
Main dish: Roasted chicken (roast beef being too stereotypically English) with roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding
Dessert: Apple Crumble with creme Anglaise and Rice Krispies Treats (my idea!!)

On the day of the meal we had to go down to the kitchen at 8AM(!!) to help the chef make our meal. Since the biggest meal of the day in the cafeteria is lunch (people who work in the neighborhood come here to eat) they were really busy preparing for that and so we donned our aprons and hair nets (not kidding) and were quickly put to work. I cut up baguettes into tiny pieces to make croutons. No fewer than 3 of the chefs warned me not to chop my fingers off with the huge knife. Jo peeled potatoes, Jenny worked on the Yorkshire pudding and then Jo and I were made to peel 4kg of apples for the crumble. The chef demonstrated a "quick, simple" way to peel and core the apples. He basically peeled the whole thing in one shot without stopping and didn't understand why we were laughing. we explained that he made it look really easy but that we wouldn't be able to do it. He said "don't you guys ever cook?" More laughter.

After we finally finished peeling the apples he cooked them and I helped him lay the crumble dough on top of the apples. The dough was delicious and we couldn't stop eating it when he wasn't looking. I'm pretty sure we violated a lot of kitchen rules that day, as ate everything that we were preparing. After the crumble was put in the oven to bake, we tackled the salad. Following the chef's orders we sorted the joli pieces of lettuce into the salad bowls and discarded the pieces that were pas joli. The chefs had all finished their work and left us to finish our salad as they ate lunch. Luckily they had left us the bowl with the leftover dough to use as a garbage bin for the ugly pieces of lettuce that we weren't suitable for the salad. When they weren't looking we took out all the dough and ate it as we prepared our salad. It sounds gross but it was really yummy.

We finished almost everything by 11AM and only had to come back at 6 to make the salad dressing and the Rice Krispies treats.

To make an already long story short, the dinner went well and the Frenchies liked the Rice Krispies treats! When they first heard the ingredients they were pretty weirded out ("you want to make a dessert using cereal? and with marshmallows? are the marshmallow inside the rice krispies?"). I explained to no fewer than 10 people how to make them and I can't tell you how happy I was when the chef said to me "C'est pas mauvais!" (it's not bad!)

Kids will be Kids

2006-03-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

While my spoken French is (I hope) improving everyday, I've started to wonder how well my written French is nearly two years out of college. I sometimes wonder how I could've written 10 page papers in French. But then I also wonder how I wrote 10 pages of anything!I've started reading more in French so as to curb the brain cell loss. I even contemplated starting a journal in French. That idea didn't last too long.

Apparently I have nothing to worry about. My best class - the really smart and sweet ones who have in the past pretended to be stuck to their chairs just so that they could stay in my class longer - MARVELLED at my ability to write in French yesterday.

We are working on the parts of the body(as we have been for over a month now). The kids were all given a picture of a monster that they had to describe in their notebooks (i.e. "The monster has three eyes"). I then asked a few kids to come to the board. So as to not give away the spelling of the English words I wanted them to write on the board I wrote the body parts in French. As I was writing the words for nose, mouth, toes (le nez, la bouche, les orteilles) on the board all of a sudden all the kids started making noise behind me. One girl said "Wow Laura, you write really well in French!" and I turned around and was like "Thanks...but these are simple words..." As I turned back to continue writing on the board I heard one of the girls say to the girl next to her "Yeah, but she's English, you wouldn't expect it.." She then started telling me all these French expressions and asking if I knew what they meant. When I didn't she - and her classmates- would all chime in to explain it to me (even with little gestures when necessary!)

The kids don't fully understand who I am/what I do/what language I speak. Some examples:

Sometimes in the middle of talking to me in French the kids will ask me (in French) if I speak French. It makes me really wish I knew how to say "duh" in French.

One time (with my 7 year olds) in the middle of the class a kid said "oh, you speak English?" These are also the kids who think that their teacher went all the way to the United States to pick me out for them. The other day in class (also in the middle of the lesson) a girl randomly said "you can tell that you're not French, when you speak you have an accent sometimes." It's funny how the kids have a way of bringing you crashing right back down to earth whenever you think you're doing well with their language. The whole encounter was actually it was funnier in French so I'll put that part in for my francophile friends:

student: ça se voit que tu n'es pas française.
me: comment ça?
student: ça se voit quand tu parles. tu as un accent.
me: (laughing a little) ça s'entend plutôt, non?

The teacher in the back of the room got a kick out of that one.

Today I saw one of my students in the street with a kid I didn't know. I said bonjour to them and they said it back. Before I had even passed them the kid I didn't know turned to my student and said "Do you know her?" and my student turned to look at me and hesitated a second before saying "yeah....she's...the English student" and I said to him "assistant, not student!!"

Of course I can't forget the time that a student was showing me his marker box that was written in both English and French. He would cover up the French part and have me read the English part and then tell him what it meant in French. He would then compare what I said to what was written in French and was surprised every time that it was the same thing. I was never fully sure if he was testing my knowledge of English or of French.

How could I have written this much without mentioning 50 Cent? He comes up at least once a week: Laura, est-ce que tu connais 50 Cent? (do you know 50 Cent?) I'm never sure if they're asking me if I know 50 Cent personally or if they are just wondering if I've heard of him. Anyhow, I'm really sick of hearing about 50 Cent. One time a girl came up to me at the end of class with a picture that she had been begging her teacher all through classto show me . As she approached me with the picture I said to myself "I'll bet anything in the world she's going to show me a picture of 50 Cent." And guess what??? It was a picture of 50 Cent! It was a cut-out from a magazine and on the reverse side of the page was none other than Harry Potter. So, yes, in France 50 Cent is a role model for children!

Finally, I'll leave you with a few lovely mental images. If ever on a random Tuesday morning you think of me and wonder what I'm doing all the way over in France here are some possibilities:

-Forgetting the melody of "If you're happy and you know it" in front of a class of 30 students. It actually happened. It most certainly didn't help that their over-eager teacher was in the back of the room singing "If you're happy and you know it" to the melody from "She'll be coming 'round the mountain."
-Dancing the hokey-pokey in front of a group of 8 year olds.
-Trying to get some "too cool for school" kids to be enthusiastic about singing "if you're happy and you know it" and then calling a kid out for faking all the words.
-Standing in a circle holding hands with students and singing along to "The farmer in the dell" (or rather, learning the lyrics as I go along) with the aforementioned over-eager teacher who sings like a 7 year old girl despite the fact that he's a 50+ year old man.
-Trying to contain my laughter as I have my kids repeat the phrase "Run, Forrest, Run!"

Here's a picture of my babies, the 7 year olds. It's quite normal for kids to be out of their seats. It often happens to me that I just say to a kid "Why are you standing?" and the kid will just turn around and go back to his seat without even responding.

The Best of Both Worlds

2006-03-13T12:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning Tessa (my bike riding partner) and I went for a ride in the woods. We had to walk our bikes up this huge muddy hill in order to get to the paved bike paths and we kind of felt like amateurs in our jeans when there was a group of about 5 people in full bike riding regalia trying to go up at the same time as us. As we were leading the way into the forest I couldn't help but think that it looked a lot like the jungle in "Lost" (minus all the green foliage) and I wondered if there would actually be a bike path at the top of this hill. With lots of pain in my lungs we finally made it to the path. One way led down and was quite tempting. The other way was steep and led to an even higher path. Still in much pain, I walked my bike up the (perfectly bikeable) path and made it to the higher one. Then we rode through the woods and it was a lot of fun. We found horse stables and there was some sort of teenage horse jumping competition going on. We watched for a bit and then followed some roads out of the woods eventually making our way back to town. We had NO idea where we were going but that was what made it even more fun.

Since it was Sunday EVERYTHING in town was closed and it was really nice to enjoy the outdoors. We were certainly not the only people riding around on bike but we were the ones least dressed for the occasion. As we went through the woods trying to perfect our hands-free biking techniques Tessa joked that she was teaching me the way to enjoy a Sunday in the countryside. I said "come to New York where you can shop all day on Sundays and you'll see which is better." I think this time in Laval is actually changing the New Yorker in me that needs everything to be open all the time. Could I actually be mellowing out?

Back in town we ended up in a neighborhood that I recognized because one of the teachers I work with lives there. We biked past her house and her daughters were in the yard so we stopped to say hello. Sometimes it just feels like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood around here!

After bike riding I got a delicious, fresh-out-of-the-oven baguette and I ate it with Philadelphia cream cheese that another assistant was nice enough to bring me from England! Warm baguette + cream cheese = the best of both worlds

Galettes galore

2006-02-06T19:05:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted in a while because I've been really busy.....eating.

Usually January is the time of year when people are feeling really gross about everything that they ate over the holidays and make resolutions to eat less/lose weight, etc. I'm sure that happens here in France too, but you could never tell by looking.

When I look back on the month, the only memories that really stand out are the ones that were centered on big meals. The words of the month were galette and raclette.

I attended at least 3 galette parties. The Galette des Rois cakes are suppposed to be eaten in early January for the Epiphany, but they kind of last all month. All the bakeries are full of them. It's a cake made of filo-like dough and the filling is frangipane (almond paste). But there are other flavors as well like pear and chocolate or apple! The apple is my favorite, it kind of tastes like apple pie. Baked inside the galette is a fève or a little figurine (in the old days it used to be a bean) and the person who finds the fève is the King (or Queen I suppose) and gets to wear the crown. Also, depending on what circles you move in, the person who finds the fève is supposed to buy the next galette. At my first galette party (at one of my teachers' house with all the teachers from my favorite school) I didn't find a fève. At the second one, I did get a fève! The galette parties are fun because the youngest person gets under the table and calls out the name of the person that each slice will go to - this is so that everyone gets a fair chance at getting the fève.

Here's a picture of me with my slice of brioche (more cake-like than galette) and you can see the fève inside of it.

And now, the raclette. Raclette is like fondue but even better. It's very hearty and filling so you only eat it in the winter and especially when you go skiing. Each person melts a slice of cheese (one at a time) and then eats it with either potatoes and bacon or ham or salami, etc. It's really yummy and really filling. It's also a lot of fun to melt your own cheese.

Last week we had a raclette soirée for 18 people (!) and I took a bunch of pictures but I had problems with my memory card and lost all of them. The raclette dinner was a lot of fun and really yummy. We had an apéro while the potatoes cooked and finally sat down to eat around 9-ish. Even though it was February 1st (the unofficial end of galette season) we managed to find 2 galettes for dessert!

Here's a picture of a raclette machine. I will be purchasing one of these when I get back to NYC. I've also told my French friends that I don't care if you're only supposed to have raclette in the wintertime, I'm having it year round. It's really that good!

Officially French!

2006-02-06T18:48:00.000+01:00

I am now officially French. Why? Because I am now in possession of a bike! I got it last Friday and proceeded to get a flat tire that night while showing it to my friends here in the foyer. Luckily enough one of my neighbors volunteered to fix it for me so the bike was up and running by Sunday when Tessa and I went for a ride around Laval. We realized that there were lots of parts of town that we hadn't seen and that the bikes would allow us to cover more area than we could on foot. We rode around town using our schools (we each have three that we teach in) as points of interest. Laval is really hilly (I scale what I call a petite montagne to walk to one of my schools) and that's partially why I hadn't been more proactive about getting a bike before now. We rode around for a couple of hours and saw so much of the town, it was really cool. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with pastries from the bakery.

Really happy with our new hobby, Tessa suggested we ride bikes again today. I wasn't sore from riding yesterday - or so I thought - but when I sat on my bike to ride over to meet Tessa at her school, it was really painful! We just sucked it up and went riding for an hour. We went in a direction I had never been before and we were no farther than 5 minutes out of Laval when we started seeing farm animals! We rode along the river and it was really pretty. There's a little forest just outside of town where you can camp and ride horses - two things I've never been inclined to do before - and I started thinking it might not be such a bad idea to try them.

I really don't like riding in the streets with cars and stuff, it's just kind of scary. When we ride around town we usually just stay on the sidewalks (this was perfectly feasible yesterday when it was Sunday and there were maybe 2 other people on the main street in town) but apparently that's not legal! If I ever get stopped though, I'm just going to play the "stupid foreigner" card.

For the moment I'm loving my bike and walking is so passé but I know it won't last. In the meantime, I'm going to look into getting a little basket for my bike so that I can put a baguette in it!

Thank You!

2006-01-12T00:15:00.000+01:00

When I returned from New York I had this big box waiting for me on my desk. The famous package I had heard so much about in New York ("did you get our package yet??") had arrived in Laval while I was gone!

It was a great thing to come back to and it contained a whole load of goodies such as Christmas Peeps (who even knew those existed?), Hershey's kisses, fun notes from Jill, Liz and Michelle, and some pictures from home.

The lone Hershey kiss you see in the picture is the only remaining evidence that they were ever in the package. I can't even claim to have shared them. I let the English girls try them and they said all sorts of not-nice things about Hershey's chocolate: "it tastes like parmesan cheese!" "it tastes of sick" "Hershey's sounds like an STD." So I had no choice but to eat the kisses all by myself!

Thanks for the fun package girls!

Adventures in Teaching

2006-01-11T23:49:00.000+01:00

I taught all of my classes the alphabet yesterday. Every grade did the alphabet but it was tailored differently to each level. For example, with the older kids we used the alphabet to then play Hangman and with the little kids we only learned half the alphabet and then they colored in the letters of the alphabet. Every grade found the the alphabet song hilarious -the only thing stopping me from telling the older kids that they most certainly could not do any better than the kids on the CD was my inability to construct that sentence in French. The little kids -7 year olds, my "babies"- were more amused by one child's decision to stand up and dance to the alphabet song in some sort of Moroccan-looking belly dance complete with intricate hand/arm gestures. It was all I could do to stop myself from laughing. It might help to mention that this kid, Gerard, is my favorite kid and as much as I know it's wrong, I have a hard time telling him to behave (which I should do often as he's a bit of a problem child). My second favorite kid, Corentin, decided this dancing thing was a good source of attention and then got up and tried dancing too. I think it's worth restating at this point that I had two children (essentially) belly-dancing to the ALPHABET song and I could not laugh in front of them! Before I could have any more copycatting belly-dancers in the classroom I quickly put an end to the dancing. The babies took surprisingly well to the new information, and they also remembered what we had learned before the vacation - they can all still count to ten in English! I was so proud of them!
Not surprisingly, the babies were more cooperative than the older kids who were really testing me yesterday. I had to move a few of their seats around to get them to stop talking. At one point I declared that there would be silence in the class as they copied down the words to the song. That just made it worse and I found myself saying "shhhh" and "Silence!" every 30 seconds or so. They had pissed me off so much that I decided to give the good kids some candy canes from home and not give the candy to the bad kids. I know that this wasn't exactly the right thing to do, but I didn't care at this point. The bad kids had no shame and flat out begged for candy even after several encounters such as this one:

Kid: Laura, can I please have a candy? I didn't get one.
Laura: Do you think your behavior merits it?
Kid: (looking guilty)No, it doesn't.

It's just frustrating with this class because I know we could have a lot of fun if only they'd stop talking. Sometimes I stand there and just wait for silence and by the time one kid tells another kid to stop talking because "Laura is waiting" then the second kid responds to the first kid who then starts talking to someone else and it's just a vicious cycle. I also have a major problem child in this class who is really good when he behaves (which is never) but really bad when he doesn't (which is all the time). In the beginning of the class he started acting up and I stood next to his desk and said in a relatively nice tone "Kevin, I'm warning you now, the first time you misbehave you are going back to class, there will not be a second ......" and as I stood there repeating "second...second..." struggling to remember the word in French Kevin looked up at me and said "warning?" and I said "Yes, so you understand, no second warning, ok?" The poor kid is always in trouble, he knows the drill by now. Kind of undermines your sense of authority when the kid you are threatening has to help you to formulate the threat in his language. But in the end I suppose it worked because it was one of the few weeks when I didn't have to send Kevin out of the classroom.

In other news, all of the assistants were swapping "can you believe this happened to me at school today?" stories at dinner and amidst the tales of uncooperative teachers/administrators/students and misspelled/misused English words in official texts "thirty, fourty, fifity" this gem of a story stood out:

A teacher quoting Shakespeare to his primary school class in front of the English assistant said "To be or not to be? What is the question?" Tessa, the English assistant in question, did not have the heart to correct him.

I've had a pretty bad case of jet-lag that has been keeping me up until about 4 in the morning most nights this past week, so I was able to fall asleep at a relatively early time (1AM) last night and looked forward to sleeping in. Unfortunately around 9AM I was woken up by some work in the hallway that eventually gravitated into my room. Once the work was done I was able to sleep till 12:45PM! Then it was time to get up, have lunch and do some lesson planning. I learned the French word for mop (and quickly proceeded to forget it) as I borrowed a mop and vacuum cleaner from downstairs. I had to take a DVD that wasn't working back to the video place and things didn't go exactly as I planned:

Laura: Hello, monsieur, this DVD doesn't work.
Mean Video Store Employee(MVSE): It worked a week ago when I watched it.
Laura: Right, but I tried it last night and it doesn't work.
MVSE: What do you mean "it doesn't work?"
Laura: I mean, I hear the sound but there's no picture.
MVSE: Well, it must be a problem with your machine because I tried it last week and it works.
Laura: Well, see, I had to watch another DVD last night since this one didn't work and my machine works fine.
MVSE proceeds to put the DVD into his machine and... it works!
Laura: See, I couldn't get past the main menu. And like I said, my DVD player works. Do you have another copy?
MVSE: No and there's nothing wrong with the DVD...
Laura: The problem is that I'd like to try to watch it again at home but it's due back now and I don't want to have to pay an extra day for it since I never got to see it.
MVSE: Well, I can let you have it for one more day just this time, but not again.

Once again a complete lack of customer service in France. Why is this still surprising to me? Did I really expect that he would just be nice and accomodating? And just for the record I'd like to report that I brought the DVD back home and it STILL doesn't work. I even rented another one just to make sure it wasn't my machine. The other DVD works, the evil one that only works in the store still won't play!

So now I have 2 DVDs to watch at home and of course tonight was the night everyone felt like going out to the movies, so I went along. Fortunately, they were showing George Clooney's "Goodnight and Good luck" in VO (version orginale aka, ENGLISH!!!) and although I wasn't particulary interested in this movie back at home I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see an American movie in English for once. I actually really liked the movie too. When we walked out of the movie theater and Jenny heard French people speaking she said "ooh I forgot we were in France!"

On a completely unrelated note, the national sales (soldes) started today. It's a month-long sales period and things in the stores are as much as 50 to 70% off! I think I'm going to hit up some stores tomorrow morning before teaching the little darlings in the afternoon.