Little people

Bonsoir tout le monde,

So, it was about an hour ago after I waved goodbye to Alice babes at the station following a Thursday afternoon as lovely as ever in her company, that I realised: I have nothing to do this evening. And I panicked. THIS NEVER HAPPENS TO ME. Sure, I have Balzac books to be reading, half term trips to be planning, and an invitation to a 'Back to School' themed uni night (the French like to dress up in uniforms even though they've never had to wear one... I knew my students loved 'em really!) but quite frankly, they can all wait until tomorrow. Bar the 'Back to School' night because that is actually only happening tonight, but with an 8am start at school tomorrow, j'ai la flemme (I can't be bothered). And alas, this is how I find myself writing to you all and inviting you to tell me what's going on in your lives :)

Reflecting back in a logical order, I think I shall start by telling you all about a magical place called Lac d'Aiguebelette, population: 229 people (in 2006 and more than likely now), number of shop-cum-boulangeries: 1. On a surprise day off, me and my housemate Simon decided to venture walking to this beautiful part of the Savoie region. "Another lake???" you may rightly ask. But it is by far my favouritest of them all.

                                                                                         
                                                                                             Because French cows don't say 'Moo'

                                                                                                                     Please excuse the heeeuuuuge sizes of these photos, but they really are necessary to see the tiny speech bubbles. Really.

Saturday, I bought a bike for 30 euros. It's not the most modern of bikes, nor the best equipped. My lovely teacher who kindly gave me a lift to the second hand bike and ski sale didn't think I'd need to bother buying a sturdy lock chain for it, because no-one will try and steal it, in her opinion. But I think it's beautiful. Vintage even. Unfortunately I can't show you a picture as it's 3 floors downstairs locked outside, and it's dark. But I promise one for the future! I also promise to ride it at some point and not just keep it locked out there neglected, but pretty.

And here is the part where I explain the title of this blog. I have agreed to be a 'nounou' (a nanny) for one of the English teachers at the lycee, looking after her two boys of 3 and 6 years old. I pick them up on a Monday after school, take them to the park, get them ready for dinner and above all, speak English with them. Now, I've only just in the past few years got round to liking small children, but I still have a lot to learn in understanding them. On first meeting them last Saturday, the 3 year old cried, and I was royally blanked by the 6 year old. Even chocolate couldn't persuade them to like me. I tried speaking to them in English, and then in French, and I was met with silence.

Monday, I went to collect them for the first time from school. Laden with laptop and schoolbag, I hurried to get there before 5.55pm, as my teacher said that they threaten to lock the gates and leave the children there should they not be picked up by the cut off point. Surprisingly, the boys recognised me. Holding DaDa, the 3 year old's beloved teddy, we 4 made our way to the park. The 6 year old I am learning likes to be independent and go off and climb trees and play houses like Tarzan. My nerves don't like this so much. I played Cache Cache (Hide and seek) with the 3 year old and 1 of his girl friends from school. Cache Cache turns into Tache Tache with him though, as he has trouble with his C's and T's. He is adorable. Then we 3 went to play in the play house. I was thrown out of the house, for reasons I don't know or understand. Turning around to check my laptop had not been stolen from the place under the tree where I'd left all our stuff, I noticed 2 young boys approach my tree. I then noticed them preparing to relieve their little bladders. Surely they are old enough to know that this is not acceptable behaviour!!! I looked over to their oblivious French mums chattering away, were they really going to let this happen?! And in the blink of an eye, it was too late. Looking on in horror, these 2 little angels were peeing over our stuff.

"Mama, regarde, je fais pee pee!"
"Oui cheri!" calls back the really supervising mother.

"Time to go home kids!" I say, as I trunch over to survey the damage caused. Splash marks all over the boys bags, yellow coats, MY BAG and LAPTOP BAG. The 6 year old goes to pick up his bag:

"C'est mouillé (wet)" he says. 

Sighing, I carried all the wet belongings home. Luckily their parents were very understanding: "Welcome to the world of little children". 

In work and old children news, things are still going OK, up and down, depending on the size of classes. I love my Thursday class of 3 girls who voluntarily come week in and out, and who love literature as much as I do. Planning lessons on Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen is a pleasure for me, and I love helping them understand the meaning behind these classic texts. Those that have a passion for English and want to learn make classes even more fun. 16-18 year olds are the ones I find the hardest to get motivated/ quiet, and I did have to tell a group off yesterday. I was just as shocked as you probably all are! Not one for an argument or confrontation, the punishment of moving this group of re-offenders for next week's lesson came from nowhere, and as the class fell silent, my face went bright red. But, secretly, I quite like that they finally listened to me! Teaching is doing wonders for my confidence, and each lesson I finish I still can't quite believe I've stood up in front of all these people and talked and talked and talked. My blushing reaction still hasn't become immune to smooth talking 17 year olds however, as I told a pupil he looked like Danny from The Script after playing a fill in the blanks game to one of their songs.

"Is he good looking?" he asked. 
"Ahem, well......" I said.

Things I'm learning/ have learnt this week:

1. 3 and 6 year olds cannot read.
2. Lyon is Paris really.

                                                     

                                                               Or Amsterdam!!!!

3. This is an example of a French person's idea of a 'slice' of cheese. Yes, that is width ways.

Well my loved ones, that is all my news for now. The 2 week half term holidays start on Saturday, and I am off on my travels. Pontarlier, Normandy and an Italian road trip, here I come babyyyy! Although I am sad not to be going home to see you all, Christmas is not far away now :)

Gros bisous and hugs and amour etc etc etc to you all.
Will write soon!

Grenoble Girl

Oh, and I joined the University of Savoie, hello extra French learning! Geekilicious

X

I am a working woman

And I have a French cold.
In that order of most important things happening in my life right now. Just kidding, but being ill does seem worse when you have no mama to look after you and the temperature's dropped to 6 degrees and you can't buy throat lozenges from the supermarket when the pharmacy is closed on a Sunday. Thank gawd for tea and Gilmore Girls series 4 is all I can say!

Anyway, bonsoir one and all!

So, it finally happened: I started working for a living. And if I'm being perfectly honest, I like it. Granted 12 hours a week isn't so much working for a living, but being at school from 8am-6pm kind of feels a lot like it.

I started taking my own lessons exactly a week ago today, with 6 gracious hours on a Monday, and classes of 14-18 year olds. My first ever class only turned up for a 20 minute lesson after a pop quiz, and with only time left to chat about the 5 students' weekends, hobbies, general lives, I thought to myself: well, this is easier than I thought it'd be.

Lunch time. And I ate in the canteen for the first time after buying my brand new lunch card with my very own name, Madie Rossmair... For lunch, we have the selection of: a salad, a cheese/ fruit, a desert/ yoghurt, a main meal of veg, carbs and fish/ meat, and a warm roll. THIS IS TOO MUCH FOOD. I'm only used to a sandwich! But sadly, my sandwich is not allowed in the canteen, and after already experiencing the larry loner lifestyle of eating in the staff room, I am forced to overeat. Also, I have propositioned the students with the idea of eating lunch with me, as an extra way to practice their English in an informal setting. So far, no-one has taken me up on this offer. Even after giving them my e-mail address. I refresh the page eagerly in hope that someone will take me up on my offer and save me from sitting with a mean teacher with whom I had this conversation today:

Me: How are you?
Teacher: Good............. (pause of a gazillion lightyears!!!!) And you?
Me: I'm good thanks
Teacher keeps staring at food.
Me: How was your weekend?
Teacher: Good. And yours?
Me: It was good thanks. I went to a party.
Teacher: I went to a funeral.

This is not a conversation starter here my friends! And so I cross my fingers hoping for more upbeat meal discussions in the future.

Reverting back a week ago to last Monday afternoon, and I started my first afternoon of teaching. DEVIL CHILDREN. 16 pupils in a classroom is too many for a language assistant, and of course after I heard a pupil say "It's OK, she's nice", I was not a teacher in their eyes any more. Why I gave them food after I will never know. This is reinforcing bad behaviour.

I won't generalise though, it's only a minority who behaved so, mob mentality and all that. Get them in a small group, and pupils are angels. I even had a girl come up to me and ask if I could help her with her application to go and study in America for her final year of school. I was so proud of the determination and ambition of some students, and I don't even really know them at all at the moment! As for joker boys and teen girls looking at me like I'm the biggest loser on the planet, they are my personal projects to crack and get on my side. Watch this space!

After a stressful day and a half, I met up with my dear friend from uni, Alice, in the elderly people's town of Aix-les-Bains.

And we drank hot chocolate with bowls of whipped cream on top. MMMMmmhmmmmmmm.

Friday I went to a party with other assistants and French people alike. The costume theme was anything, so I was a petit papillon (butterfly). Here I am with my hippy and cowboy German friends. 

After drinking too much of the wine that obviously cost a bit more than my 3 euro bottle contribution to the sharing table, we made our way to Annecy again in the chilly Saturday afternoon air. Here, a big celebration was a'going down, to commemorate the day when all the sheep, cows, donkeys etc were being brought down from the mountains for the winter so they wouldn't catch a chill.  

Unfortunately, so many other like-minded people decided to go to see the spectacle, so all I could see was the view from this photo above. What are these things? Well, I couldn't really tell you the answer to that because I'm short.

Luckily, tall Simon was on hand to take these photos for me and show me what was actually going on.

 Simon: There's sheep!
Ducking down to look between people's legs, the sight of sheep legs running past confirmed that this was, in fact, happening.

It was all worth it for the accordion playing, the crepes, the view of this lake (see below) again, and the safe knowledge that those Alpine animals will not go cold this winter. 

Well, that's all for now folks! I'm going to get into bed with my microwavabley warm teddy and hot lemon and honey drink and prepare myself for another 8am start. Still loving life, honest!

Missing you all and wish you could come sing me 'Soft Kitty'.

Gros (air) bisous (so you don't get sick!)

Grenoble Girl

I am the 'Yes' Woman

And je suis crevée (A.K.A: Knackered).

Coucou dear family, friends and world!

Firstly, I just want to apologize for appearing to have slipped off the face of the earth this past week and a half. I haven't. I am still here, currently in my bed on this Sunday night, determined to write you all before I commence teaching tomorrow. If I left it any later to publish a new post then there wouldn't be post enough to fit all my happenings into. Go figure.

So as my title says, I have become the 'yes' Woman. For example:

New friend: "Maddie, do you want to go to an Irish bar tonight and drink this thing called a giraffe (see below) even when you're planning on getting up early to go to the market and then on a day trip to Annecy?"

                                                             (Yes, that is 3 litres of beer...)

Me: "Yes"

New friend no.2: "Do you want to go to a nightclub tonight even though you have to be at the school to observe classes all day from 8am onwards?"

Me: "Yes"

Me: "Do you want to go to the all night and all day market and seriously consider inquiring at the stall of the French guy selling old skis, books and Shetland ponies?"

New friend no.3: "Yes"
(OK, so it was me proposing things to do at times. I can't place the blame entirely on everyone else...)

And I still made it to the deliciously cheap market:

The beautiful Italian-like Annecy:

And stumble across this here mountain that is famous for looking like... a woman's body...?

Anyway, the beginning of this week started off with assistant training in Grenoble centre. I got to see some old faces, and meet some new ones, and find out how complicated and expensive the French health system is. <3 the NHS. After our introductory talk, we headed to the awaiting coaches that would take us to a quaint village right at the top of the nearby mountains. Sitting with my new German friend Viola at the front of the coach, I didn't think we'd make it to the top, as the driver wound up the mountain looking down at his map in reply to Viola's question of what altitude we were climbing to. Falling off the face of the Alpes more like! But again, don't worry mum, we made it.

We stayed in bunk beds in youth lodgings, Brownie camp style, and were offered Chicken curry for dinner, or the Vegetarian option of breaded fish. Being more lovingly known as a 'Pescetarian', I didn't have to go hungry. But the French's incredulity of/ unwillingness to accept the idea of people not eating any meat or fish makes me chuckle. The next day, on being presented with ideas of activities to do with the students in the classroom and seeing the 3 piercings of the male teacher training us for the day, I was prepared for what life in a French school entails. 

I can't tell you all how welcoming the teachers and pupils at the school are. I've been for tea and macaroons with teachers, had my own little welcome party, and been invited for a night out on the town to the places where we shouldn't bump into any of the 'kids'! It's not that the students are so uncool that we wouldn't want to be seen with them though, they're all very sweet. Full of questions and eager to begin lessons with little ole me, and I didn't even have to give all of them a bar of bumper pack Dairy Milk chocolate! 

So, a summary of the most important lessons I've learned this week that I shall share with you all:

This cheese:

                                                                           is pas bon.


                                                          The lake from last week...

                                               ... is even more impressive when the sun is shining!

And it's always better to go with a friend to avoid the pain of having to take photos of yourself. Awk. 

Also, there are a large number of girls at the lycée wearing rings on their wedding finger. How many of you are really engaged/ married already?! 

Things I still need to learn

How to deal with this...

????

How to warm up the custard/ crème anglaise I'm using in one of my British food classes tomorrow. 

       Oh, and to know when to go to bed.

So my loved ones, all that's left to say is a big bonne nuit, and that I miss you all and wish you were here. 

Gros bisous and an English hug.

Grenoble Girl