My Week- Monday to Sunday

In the US a week starts on Sunday; all our calendars go Sunday through Saturday. That's not how things work in France- here, the week starts on Monday. Calendars go Monday through Sunday. And thus my week starts on Monday:

Those of you who are up to date with my ramblings (which I admit can be a daunting task... again a reference to my inability to be brief) know that on Monday something exciting happened: I received my Carte de Sejour and, after 5 long months, I'm finally legal to be living and working in France!!! Wooohoooo!!! Thus Monday was a wondrous day.

Tuesday began as many of my Tuesday's begin- I slept until around 8:45 or so, got up and showered and got ready for school leisurely and was out of the apartment around 10:15, to be at the train station by 11, to get to work by noon. Classes went well, as they usually do when I'm prepared. After both classes (Class 1: noon to 1, break [during which time I called my lovely sisty-ugler to wish her a Happy Birthday!!], Class 2: 2 to 3) I went over to the P building- I'm not entirely sure why they have this building. It's just off of the regular part of the school; I think the two classrooms there might have, at one point, been used while they were doing construction on other parts of the main building. At any rate, this is where they have a nice wood floor and I was told I could use this space to dance in whenever I wanted, as long as there wasn't something else going on- aka, almost whenever I want.

So I took off my heels and my nice pants (I always dress up to go to work) and put on a pair of cut-of sweatpants and my jazz shoes, plugged in my iPod speakers and my iPod and went at it. For about an hour and 15 minutes I stretched and danced to my hearts content. I had my iPod on shuffle and just changed styles as the songs came. I practiced turns and while my intention was to maybe start a new choreography piece I ended up just dancing around and enjoying that freedom. I worked myself harder than the just-ok-ballet class that I take occasionally and it felt good to be pushed, to be tired, to feel my muscles really working and to MOVE! For about the last 10 minutes or so I started to gain an audience, which might have been awkward had I not been living the incredible high of endorphins coursing through my body. The P room I was in has windows that face the main part of the school and if you are on the second level of the main building you can pretty easily look down the windows in the hallway into the room I was dancing in. It started with just a small group of a couple of students and built, over 10 minutes or so, to be about 15 or so. Then as I started to slow down, stretch out and cool down they dispersed. It will be interesting to see if this phenomenon continues and if, as I begin to formulate a schedule, the students will continue to flock to the 2nd floor corridor to observe me. I kind of hope not...

After my marvelous hour 15 of dance I changed back into my regular pants and my heels and met up with Helene, the mother of my flat mate Olivier. She was having me over for dinner and then I would spend the night at her house and she'd take me to work on Wednesday morning. Helene is a super nice woman who is a little shy and a little nervous about her English but so welcoming and kind of cute in her shyness.

We got back to her house and, after a quick shower to freshen up, sat down and tried to make the TV work in order to watch Obama's speech. She, nor her husband, watch much TV and we couldn't get it to work just right, so eventually I pulled out my computer and we watched via CNN.com. Roger, a recently-retired English teacher from my Lycee, also came over and we drank tea, ate cookies and watched the speech together. It was interesting to watch it with non-Americans but I think they appreciated it for what it was nonetheless. And it was nice to feel connected to home.

After the speech Roger had to go and then Olivier's dad and I played some sort of checkers-like game that was slightly complicated to figure out, but interesting and fun once you go the hang of it. I kept chuckling inside as he would say repeatedly, "C'est drole! C'est tres tres drole." When I would make a move. Which means, "That's funny. That's very very funny", but he would say it so dryly and really, it's more of a strategy game, not a "funny" game. Well, maybe you had to be there to understand, but I at least, chuckled inside.

I chatted with Helene a little bit and then we got the table ready for dinner. Catherine, one of my favorites of the English teachers at the school, joined us for the evening. We had a little wine and then sat down to eat. As usual, Helene's cooking was delicious and as usual, Catherine was great company. It was a very pleasant evening!! (We had a random conversation about the deliciousness of poptarts, for which I had to get my computer back out in order to find a picture and fully explain what a PopTart really is.) :)

In the morning Helene took me back to the Lycee and I began teaching at 9. (I usually teach at 8 on Wednesdays but my first class had been canceled as the students had an exam). Again, things went well- I covered a document that I think is actually really interesting:



I'm not sure if I've explained this, but several of my classes are preparing for an exam where they will be given a document, such as this one, and they'll have to talk, based on the document provided, for 5 to 10 minutes (depending on their level). So we often cover documents in class.

Anyway, classes passed as normal. Veronique, one of the math teachers at the Lycee, had invited me back to her place for dinner (and thus to spend the night), so we headed back to her place after not-very-tasty cafeteria lunch. She has an adorable 7 year old daughter named Lucy, who we picked up from day-care. Then Lucy invited her friend and neighbor, Marion (who she kept calling Marionette, to which Marion sometimes replied, "That's not my name!") over and the 4 of us went for a nice walk in the countryside. (Veronique had to lend me some shoes- there was no way I could walk around the country for an hour in my heels!) We passed some horses and an old church. The girls played at park we passed for a few minutes. We wound our way through some back streets that had ancient walls on one side or the other until we came upon the castle in this little country village. Veronique took a couple of pictures of me and the girls in the castle park and then we headed home where we all put on aprons and make a chocolate cake.

After a short but fun dance party of sorts Marion went home and then Lucy settled down to do some homework. Veronique showed me pictures from a trip she had taken to Arizona a few years ago and then we started putting dinner together. Her husband, Eric, came home and we ate and then put in a French movie that takes place in Spain that seemed to have a humor style along the same sort of lines as Young Frankenstein. I grasped the majority of it, but there were certainly things that, in the speed and poor pronunciation of the characters' speech, I missed. But it was amusing anyway- well at least the part I saw. Lucy went to bed around 9:45 and, exhausted as I was after 2 full days of speaking LOTS of French, I was perfectly content when they suggested we watch the rest of the movie another time and the adults hit the hay around 10:30 or so.

Thursday morning Veronique drove me back to the school, with a quick stop at a local cafe for a morning coffee. (They had the CUTEST little puppy there!!) I had class from 9 to 10, again, more 20 Questions fun, and then a 2 hour break, during which time I planned lessons with another teacher and ate lunch, then class again from noon to 1. After my classes I went back over to the P building for "repetition" (rehearsal) for the Carnival show.

Small explanation: Nathalie, one of the teachers, organizes a teacher show for carnival every year. It is her life and, while I've been told that usually the other teachers are more compliant than they have been this year, no one else puts in as much effort as she does. She spends hours working with teachers and choreographing. In short, she lives for the Carnival show.

So yeah, I went over there and spent an hour and a half trying not to laugh as we worked on the Finale piece and reviewed the basketball section and the flame section-- this year's theme is olympics- so there are 5 of us that are the flame, we start the show using orange and yellow material to represent the fire; then there are a series of sports "dances" including basketball and synchronized swimming (thank the Lord I'm not doing swimming as I found out those people doing the swimming section are supposed to wear swim suits on stage!!). (Note: if you're not laughing right now at the images I have set before you then it should only be because your mouth is hanging open in shocked horror at what I have gotten myself into, haha).

After "rehearsal" I walked back to the train station and, after my double overnight, headed back to Lyon. While on the train I got a call from Carl from Paddy's Corner- a cafe/bar in the Croix-Rousse where, upon hearing they were looking to hire an English speaker, I turned in my resume. I had already interviewed and I was told they would call me to set up a trial of sorts. This was that call. Carl asked if I could come in from 6 to 9 to try things out. Excited, I made my way home, took a quick nap to rest my brain and then got ready and headed to Paddy's.

Carl showed me around the bar and did a basic explanation of where things are and how you use them. ie: espresso machine and how it works, how to pour a beer and which are which, bottled bears are here, non-alcoholic drinks are here, this is how you use the cash register, this is how we wash dishes, blah blah blah.

Then, with only 20ish minutes of explanation under my belt, he let me at it. I started taking orders and asking people what they wanted. Despite the potential hire as an English speaker, I was using much more French than I was English and by the end of my three hours, which were both busy and fun, I understood that "un pegh de gunie" was french for "a pint of Guinness" and that a Monaco was made with grenadine, lemonade and Carlsberg beer (ICK!). At 9:00 when Carl told me, "after that don't take any more orders" I was a little disappointed to be stopping. This was the first time I had been busy, completely occupied for a LONG time and it was liberating to feel that pressure of having so much to do! People to serve and drinks to make. Dishes to clean and put away. Tables to clear. It was wonderful! I have missed being busy almost more than I've missed anything else from the states (people excluded obviously). I have talked some about missing driving, missing certain foods- Mexican mainly, missing 24 hour grocery stores and other such American things. But of all the random things I miss, being busy is what I miss most. I sit around (often in front of this computer) far too often. I don't do enough with my time. Hence my desire to have a second job! And what a perfect second job to have. Not only will it fill my free time, the time I am working will be filled with that pressing feeling that there's always something that needs to be done.

Those of you reading this now thinking I'm crazy, thinking that living a life of leisure is so much better than living in the hustle and bustle, I'd like you to contemplate taking 6 months off of work and making no plans to fill it. No meetings, no bible studies, no sports or YMCA memberships, no rehearsals, no school, no "extra curricular activities" of any kind. Now also imagine that you have to stay in one place- you can't travel for whatever reason. For the first month, maybe even two, this is WONDERFUL! You can read, watch movies, take walks, knit, have coffee in a cafe, relax! But think... after that, it starts to get colder outside and taking walks aren't as appealing. You get a little board of "relaxing" and you've watched pretty much all the movies in your limited collection (well, at least my collection is limited). You run out of books to read and either need to buy new books (which I haven't done because I'm trying to save money) or borrow books from friends (which would work much better if friends offered them freely, but that doesn't happen as often as I'd like). After a while you'd get board and you'd want to start refilling your life with things. But now imagine that you are in a foreign place where all those "extracurricular" are either hard to find or too expensive. This is my life. As you can imagine, working 12 hours a week feels like NOTHING! And I haven't had much to fill it with. Now perhaps, if you've got a decent enough imagination, you'll understand why I'm so excited to work hard, to be busy and to fill my time!! I'm actually more excited to be working than I am to get paid for it. Although that is clearly a bonus. :)

Ok, enough on that. I'm excited and Carl and I are going to talk again on Monday. I'll start the first of February! :) Woohooo!

Thursday night I stayed up preparing a lesson on Obama's speech- one of the teachers asked me to lead the whole class on it for Friday and I hadn't, as yet, had the time to work on it. I stayed up late reading and rereading, watching clips and highlighting segments, thinking of questions and ways to make it interesting. I even looked up Bush's speech from 2001 to compare it to. By 1:30 am I was toast and decided that what I had done was good and I was going to bed.

I was back in Amberieu by 9AM to teach my first class and then, for the second, was slightly frustrated when, instead of doing what I had spent all night preparing, we went through a worksheet they had been given for homework regarding American history. It was interesting enough, they had to find dates (July 4th, 1776 for example, the dates of the civil war and the "I have a Dream Speech") and people (George Washington, Mark Twain, Billie Holiday) and places (Washington D.C). What they found was interesting and I filled in holes where they struggled. They spoke and it was a good class. Just slightly frustrating that I had stayed up late preparing when there was no need. We'll do my Obama lesson next week Friday instead.

Friday afternoon I came home (as in back to Lyon) and then met up with my friend Kim. We went to a great little cafe in the Croix-Rousse called Au Bout du Monde (At the end of the earth) and sat there drinking cafe au lait (espresso with milk) and looking up kitchen words. Kim and I had decided to start doing random vocabulary lessons- we wanted to learn everyday words we didn't know and may or may not ever need, but still, good to know: aka: a ladle is une louche; a colander is une passoire; a bathroom sink is un lavabo but the kitchen sink is l'everie. Things like that. Then we went back to Kim’s and hung out for a while, finally deciding to make dinner. We made a highly delicious, highly American meal of steak, potatoes and green beans. Mmmm! So tasty! (We did mash our own potatoes for anyone who wanted to know) And of course we drank wine with dinner, as always!

Then Kim and her boyfriend and some of his friends went to a hookah bar and I, being more inclined to dance, met up with Olivier and Lionel and the three of us went to the bar boat Serieuse where we danced the night away to the strangest mixture of disco, R&B, techno, French, rock and rap. It was actually ridiculously fun! They played everything from "Hit the Road Jack!" (for which I actually kicked off my heels- much easier to dance that way!) to "SOS". There were some old 90s songs mixed in with random 70s disco. It was a blast!

Today is Saturday. It is currently 2:22 and I am only left my bed to eat breakfast and chat for a while with my roommates. I'm hoping to have the motivation to get dressed and go to the library... I think it's open today...

I'm highly excited for tonight's plans: Anastasia and her boyfriend Joe (assistants I haven't gotten the chance to hang out with yet, but who seem like fun and who live up here in Croix-Rousse) and I are going to meet up around 7 to buy some cheese. Then we're going to head down to Marine's place where we'll meet up with Andrea (German assistant) and another friend of Marine's. We are then all changing into PJs and we're going to sit around and eat veggies, salad and cheese, drink wine, knit, watch movies and, hopefully, enjoy a marvelous evening! I'm highly excited!!!

Also in the horizon is mass at a different church. While you all start the new week in the States, I shall finish mine up. On Sunday, I'm hoping the one I'm going to try has more life (and a slightly younger crowd) than the one I usually go to up here in the CR. It's down in the main part of town and I've been told its better. They have services at 10:00, 11:30 and 7PM. Already this seems to be more practical for a younger crowd and I'm hoping that it will be good. I'll let you know.

Love, Hugs, and Smiles to everyone!!