Today was a fine Monday. I had three classes and all of them were enjoyable. I'm getting to know my students better now, which is so fun. One of the gals this morning described her favorite French dessert, which includes rice, milk, vanilla, and sugar. She was all dreamy about it and said she would translate the recipe into English for me. Goodness, how sweet! We read a text together (supplied by the teacher) but ended up talking about food, traveling, snow, weight, height, and music. One of my students looks eerily like Isaac Hanson. Long hair, too. And he plays guitar. He told me today that he wants to be in a band but he can't find one, so he plays alone in his room. I told him to put up some signs. Gotta advertise!
My second class was a group of Terminales, students who are preparing to take the Bac. They are super English speakers. I had a good time talking about segregation/desegregation/resegregation (I draw on the board to explain difficult concepts such as these). One of the chattier students spoke up right before the bell rang: "Zer can be black people and zer can be white people. But zey are all Americans!" See? Smart kids. He later saw me in the hallway and bellowed "HELLOOOO! Do you like 'arry Potter?" I've read about this phenomenon before but I saw it for real today: French students tend to leave of Hs when Hs are needed and add Hs where there are no Hs. So Harry is Arry and astronaut is hastronaut and so on. Better practice that breathy H sound.
My third lesson was on British and American English differences. One boy thought that elevator corresponded to "jumper" ("sweater" according to Brits) (cute and makes sense!). It was so funny to see their guesses laid out on the table: couche is equal to diaper is equal to bloke. Or pull is equal to sweater is equal to garbage can. It took me a year to cut all those paper strips but it was worth it. I didn't think I would feel this way but I love my students!
Other happy news: I received a letter today from CAF which is an organization which subsidizes rent for poor people like me. They take into account your rent, salary, and all that and then decide how much money to send you each month. Currently I pay 272 euros per month for my apartment. A good deal! However, with the CAF money, I'll be paying 152 euros. Which is currently equivalent to two hundred and six dollars. YOW! My roommates are still waiting on their letters but people under 25 tend to get an even larger sum back. Just one of those good things about this country.
And finally, our mysterious internet technician showed herself today. (We had a party last night during which we crafted a few signs for the technician. A previous technician had trouble finding our apartment, apparently, so we thought that a sign reading "NOUS SOMMES ICI!" [WE ARE HERE] could help. We made another sign, just for us, that read "Sans internet, sans tele, les assistants perdent la tete" [Without internet, without telephone, the assistants lose their heads i.e. go crazy!!!!]) Anyway, she was cool: she called before coming, arrived mostly on time, and tried very hard to fix our problems. However, there seems to be a very terrible issue with the actual phone line. We now await France Telecom's help ("just another 5 days!!!!" is what we keep hearing). So I'll be calling you in February.
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| Sign makin' |
3 comments:
Boo, that's bad news about your internet. It takes forever to get things fixed. Our ceiling started leaking and the landlord said if it bothers us we can call the fire department. Your students sound sweet!
hee hee, you are becoming quite the little socialist! Don't tell Grandpa!
Grandma used to make the rice dessert your student loves. "Poor man's dessert" she called it. Or maybe it was "rice pudding."
I'm impressed with your ever-developing culinary skills! I expect a four course meal the next time we meet.
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