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