This morning I got ready a little early again because the electrician was to arrive at 7:30am. While I was getting ready, I got a phone call, from whom I think is the man who delivered my oven. He must be some sort of town hall handy man because I'm pretty sure he's coming to fix my toilet that has been on the fritz for about a month now. I contacted the lady from the mairie, about a month ago to get it fixed and I think she forgot about it until she saw that I had written a sign in my bathroom about turning the water on and off, etc. when she was here to give the keys to the electrician yesterday. Anywho, he's coming on Friday morning... I was still basically asleep when he called, so I'm not sure if he is coming to fix the toilet or not... but we shall see. I told the electrician when he got here at 7:30 sharp that the plumber might be coming for that reason on Friday... and he was like... huh what's wrong with your toilet lol. I was like, hmm he must not have seen my signs yesterday, which explains why my toilet is working even less well than usual.
Before I left for work, I went to say au revoir to the electrician (who's name I still don't know)... He then followed me out, I guess to make sure I knew he'd close the door after me, and then he said in English, "Have a nice day!" haha, at least he's a nice guy, let's hope he's a good electrician too!
I was a little early, so I went to talk with Corinne... who was kind of busy... but I didn't mind sort of wandering around her classroom. Maternelle classrooms are much more colorful than their upper elementary counterparts. Even in the CP classes, there's hardly anything on the walls! I worked with a small group again, going through numbers and colors while they played with blocks. This one little kid made a pair of glasses with the blocks...it was super cute.... he said, "Maitressssse, voila mes lunettes!" and then put them up to his face. After my small group, we sang our good morning song (which is getting much much better) and the number chant. They're so cute!
In my CP classes, I read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" to go over colors. The first class didn't catch on quite as fast as the other class... which is odd because the other class is the one with the older, non-English speaking teacher. I'm beginning to really enjoy her class...even with the little trouble makers (this is the class who has the little boy that wrote the word "putain" on the board on my first day there). They seem a little more motivated and the teacher apparently had them spend a long time working on their hand-print turkey cards, which they were very proud to show off. When I told them what I ate for Thanksgiving, they all gasped and got really excited that I had chocolate pie for desert lol.
I only had one CE1 class today, Eve's class was at the library in Saint-Priest. I asked Elise, the teacher who has several classes and a hard time with these kids, if we could work with the kids in 2 small groups. There's only about 21 kids in this class, but there are so many of them that need extra attention that it can get out of control fast. I took my group into Eve's class, where I chose their seats for them, went over what we were going to do, and said those students who are showing me they are super stars will receive a sticker (sometimes... you just gotta bring out the stickers). The kids obviously tried to pull a few tricks over on me... but even though I wasn't able to react as quickly as I could if I were speaking in English, I was proud of how well I managed their behavior. Even with the second group, who had the 2 most challenging kids in it, we got through everything I wanted to get through and everyone got their stickers:) Yay!
While I was teaching the second group, 2 kids from my new favorite CP class came in to do their work (they were being punished and were sent to Eve's classroom). When I was done with my group, but the bell hadn't rung yet, I helped the 2 boys get through their word sort. There was one word I didn't quite know where to place in their spelling columns.... so I said something like... meh, that's where I'd put it but I'm not really sure... I'm American. One of the boys said, oh really? I used to live in America too, in Bel Air. I was like... oh really? He said, yeah, I'm African and my mom always tells me to remember that I'm from Bel Air and that I'm a Muslim. (lol) I realized later that there is a neighborhood in Saint-Priest called Bel Air... and that the child was not from the Bel Air in California, like the Fresh Prince. I asked the other kid if he was also from a different country, and he nodded, smiled, and said he was from Algeria. I'm glad I stayed to help them:) They were awfully cute!
I stayed to eat lunch with the other teachers and then left to go renew my metro card and buy train tickets to Italy for when Victor comes to visit. I renewed my metro pass, no problem and very quickly. Buying the train tickets didn't go so well, they aren't for sale until 2 months prior to the trip... which kind of makes trip planning a little difficult for me. I could see trains online... so I'm not sure what's up with that.... but it does explain why I couldn't buy the tickets online. On my way out, I stopped by the Lyon Christmas markets which are set up right outside of the Perrache train station. If it wasn't snowing so much, I probably wouldn't have gotten so close to each stand... which made people think I was going to buy something. There was a hot chocolate stand that I momentarily stopped at, thinking it would be kind of nice to have some hot chocolate. Before I could get my wallet out to see if I could even pay 3 euros for a cup, the man at the stand had already gotten it all prepared. It turned out I didn't have 3 euros... and then he was pissed that he had already made it for me.... but oh well. I would have come back with the money, but he was kind of a jerk anyway.
I got home on the metro and then ran to catch the bus (running very cautiously with all the snow). I got home to find a note from my electrician that he left early because he felt sick and had a fever ("I have a fievre" he wrote). The note was also signed, ELECTRICIAN... lol. I went to survey the damage from today... not too bad, looks like he finished my room... however, there was a nice layer of dust on everything (although my bed seems to be ok... I think he must have pushed it out of the way). My room smelled awful though, so I had light a candle to get rid of the burned plastic smell.
And... while I've been home, the snow has continued to pile up. I probably have a good 3 inches on my balcony. It's supposed to snow all night and tomorrow...so we'll see if I have tram/bus access to the metro to get into Lyon. I had planned on meeting Hannah to see Harry Potter again (she never saw it and I needed something to do to get out of the electrician's way). However, Mr. Electrician called to say he's going to be out sick for the rest of the week and he sounded awful... so I guess I don't have to worry about him until next week. After HP, I was going to buy train tickets with Lindsey for our Switzerland trip... so we shall see if the snow throws a wrench into any of these plans!!!
The pictures up top are from about 4pm. Miss you all!
Reste cool:)
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