yep- still sick

Hello all-

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while! I have been sick all weekend with the flu:( I ended up not babysitting Friday night for Corinne's family... which I felt really bad about, but now that I know how sick I am, it's a good thing I didn't spread it to them! Corinne came by to give me some medicine... some sort of couch syrup, advil, and tylenol for my fever. I went to bed and got a good night's sleep in.... and Saturday I woke up and felt much better than I did on Friday. Stupidly, I pushed myself to go out to lunch with Hannah and Helen. I got to our meeting spot a little early and bought a new purse at H&M.... taking advantage of just being paid+les soldes still going on. We went to lunch at Le Nord, another of Paul Bocuse's restaurants (I went to Le Sud with my dad and Steph). While it was a great lunch, in which we actually thought we saw the real-live Paul Bocuse, the world-renowned French chef who hails from Lyon and owns several restaurants around town.... I came home feeling reallly sick (I'll have to write another post sometime to describe my lunch...). Then, all night Saturday, Sunday, and today I've been struggling with the flu. I missed school today and I won't be going tomorrow because I still feel pretty weak. I talked to Laurence today, who is also very sick. She said that if I needed to go to the doctor tomorrow, she'd take me though... And I called Corinne earlier to see if she could bring me over something to eat. I got a hold of Julien, who said he'd have his mom call me as soon as she got home... so I'll hopefully have something other than applesauce and noodles to eat. I owe their family big time!

Ok- need to go lay back down. Hope you're all well!

Reste cool!

la greepppe- bleh

Salut- I'm not feeling too hot today.... la grippe (the flu) is going around all the schools and I think I've caught a little something. Thankfully, my dad brought me a few cough medicines I didn't need before, but am taking advantage of now! I'm bummed though because I'm supposed to babysit tonight for Corinne's kids.... and I called to let her know this morning that I had a little fever (I had one of those little disposable thermometers), and that I still wanted to come tonight, but didn't want to get her kids sick. She said she'd call again this afternoon to see how I'm doing, but that it probably wouldn't be a big deal to leave Julien to babysit the girls by himself. But.... we shall see. I don't have anything but couch laying and water drinking on the list of things to do today!

Besides starting to feel sick last night, I had a great double school day. The kids were cute as usual... although many were absent.... I didn't stay for lunch at the first school, so I was able to have a few hours to hang out and eat lunch chez moi. I've sort of decided that until Murielle comes back, I can use my afternoon lessons as an excuse to just come home and not feel like I'm in the way. When I got to the second school, the teacher that I sent materials to print and make copies of had forgotten because she was being observed today! She was mortified, but I just went to the computer lab and printed the stuff off I needed and was on my way. I had 2 really nice lessons where the kids went around and asked their peers what they had for breakfast.... and then I talked to another teacher who was interested in having me come for a few English lessons. She wants to do a Valentine's Day lesson.... so of course I couldn't say no! I love Valentine's Day and they don't really celebrate it here, except for between older married couples.... We will be making heart cards galore:)

Okie dokie, can't type much more, I'm having a hard time concentrating. Ugh! I hate being sick!

Reste cool:)

Snowmen.... with toes?

Salut! I've had a productive little morning.... swept, mopped, cleaned, did some school work stuff, and am now watching Family Matters in French. Steve Urkel sounds hilarious. I would have gone out to do laundry, but I had to wait for people to come around and check the gas heating system (or something). They came and went quickly saying that I actually had been upgraded to an electric water heater system, so I didn't need to be checked! I'd go out and see a museum this afternoon, but it's snowing! Must stay indoors:)

Yesterday, I had a great day at school.... none of my teachers were absent, I did a lesson with animals in Corinne's class, and lessons with snowmen in all of my other classes. We went over the parts of the body (with the hokie pokie) and some clothing items with a little book.... and then I gave them directions to follow to draw a snowman. I had them draw ears and toes on their snowmen (since we sing about them in Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes), so all of their snowmen were quite... special:) And they thought it was funny that when translated, snowman is like saying neige-bonhomme, instead of bonhomme de neige.

I will be having another double day tomorrow.... and then I'm babysitting on Friday night for Corinne's family!!! January is just flying by!

Reste cool:)

manger manger manger (mahnjay x 3)

All you've missed in my life is eating, eating, and more eating. (Lol- just kidding, but that's what it has felt like).

Yesterday, I left my apartment at 11:30 to get to the pedagogical advisor's apartment located in the Croix-Rousse area. After my 50 minute bus-metro trip, I found her apartment no problem, arriving right on time. (Side story- while I was on the metro, I was interviewed by a TCL employee who asked me how many times I use the metro a day, where I was going, what I did for a living, how old I was, etc. I'm now part of some statistic somewhere!) The pedagogical advisor's name is Agnès and she's a very nice woman that has a high appreciation for food, wine, and other cultures. She speaks French and German fluently, she knows English well enough to teach other teachers how to teach English, and is taking Italian (for her upcoming trip to Rome). Her apartment is in a very old building, with high ceilings and tall windows. When I got there Agnès was very busy in the kitchen!

I was invited over with two other language assistants, a guy from Ohio and a girl from Canada. I got there second, after the guy named Zane, and we sat and chatted with Agnès in the little bustling kitchen while we waited for Magda, the girl from Canada. I also helped whip together the egg whites for the fondant au chocolat (our desert).

Once we were all ready to get the feast started, Agnès poured us an apèritif, a kir (made with cassis liquor from Dijon and sparkling white wine). For our first course, we had a simple, but tasty salad with avocado and balsamic dressing with some petits pains (little baguette like rolls). For our main course, she made tomates à la provencale (sautéed tomatoes with garlic), haricots verts (green beans), poulet à la crème (chicken in a cream sauce), and un gratin dauphinois (similar to au gratin potatoes or scalloped potatoes). With this course, we were served a fort red wine... which I guess translates to a robust red wine. Next came the cheese course, with a plate of 5 different cheeses (brie, compté, some sort of chèvre, and 2 others that I can't remember). None of them were too strong.... and were all quite delicious. These last 2 courses were of course served with the traditional French baguette. For desert, we had the fondant (a flour-less chocolate cake), vanilla ice cream with pecans, and orange slices.

Needless to say, I felt like I was going to need be rolled home. It was an amazing meal... Agnès went above and beyond, but I'm not complaining! It's always nice to have a good meal and some afternoon company! Agnès would go in and out of the kitchen often, forgetting things and cleaning things, so the three of us assistants would go back and forth between speaking English and French. The other two have better French speaking skills than I do, Zane having lived here since 2009 and Magda being from Canada... but I didn't ever feel lost and had fun talking about travels, future trips, where we were from, and of course, the food:)

I got home around 5:30pm, and had a hard time doing anything else but laying on the couch, slowly digesting. French food is yummy, but it can sure take you out of commission for a few hours after such a large meal. I got myself ready for school, watched the Simpson's for a few hours (a show I rarely watch at home, but am quite enjoying in French lol), and tried to get to bed.

School went well today. I did breakfast food in most classes, except for doing one lesson on age in the CE1 class and the Hokie Pokie with my CP class. They were soooo cute, as usual. The older classes had a lot of kids absent today with the flu. I hope I don't get it!!! I came home feeling a little drained of energy, but I think that's just because I didn't sleep well last night.

I stayed for lunch, which was a fried cheese patty and spinach, carrot and cucumber salad, baguette, applesauce, cheese slice, and a cup of sparkling wine (brought in by Vincent, the director). He said we were drinking it to expand my knowledge of French wine.... but I think they just wanted an excuse to drink a glass during lunch;) Also during lunch, I helped the CP teacher to translate some random marketing vocabulary from English to French (no easy task, and I'm still unsure why she needed it) and I had a pre-meeting meeting with some teachers about the language festival. Turns out they didn't have everything they needed for the meeting and so they said that we'd have another meeting after the March vacation.

Once again, I feel like I won't need to eat dinner. I guess this is why the French don't eat dinner until 8 or 9pm, but I feel weird eating dinner an hour or two before bed. So we shall see.

Hope you all had a nice lundi!

A plus+

i love les soldes!

Hello tout le monde! Happy Saturday! Bon samedi!

Not too much happening today.... going to lounge and have a lazy Saturday.... make some materials for school, talk to family, and stay out of the cold weather! Granted, -2 C is only like 27 F, so it isn't thhhaaat bad, but I got used to the 50 degree weather!!! Isn't it spring yet? I was supposed to tutor this afternoon, but apparently Corinne's family is all sick with a nasty bug, so I'm staying out of there. Helen is in Lyon today, so she might come visit me if she has nothing else to do this afternoon. They went to see a movie this morning... but I didn't really know if I was tutoring until I got the final word from Corinne earlier...and I just "can't be arsed" to go out into the cold (funny expression Hannah uses when she doesn't really want to do something). They were going to see Au-dela, or the Hereafter, as it was called in the US. My dad and Steph and I saw the movie poster for it all over the place (with Matt Damon) and never could figure out what movie it was in English. Now I know!

I was more active yesterday... so that's probably more interesting than the weather and my plans to do nothing;)

Friday, I woke up and went grocery shopping.... and I mean serious grocery shopping. I even took along my cart so I could bring home heavy things like laundry detergent (still hopeful about my potential washing machine.... did I tell you I got an email saying they are reviewing my request?), canned veggies (must get my "veg" in as the Brits say), and juice... all good and heavy things when packed together in one bag. All went well doing the actual shopping, except while I was in the detergent aisle, I was a little overwhelmed and asked a nice old woman what kind she used. She sold me on a brand that I have since seen several commercials for... so must be good haha.

The only downside to being able to buy heavy things and easily transport them in my cart....was having to carry those heavy things up my 5 flights of stairs. I need a pulley system.

After shopping for food, I got ready and met Hannah downtown to get another look at some January sales (after first stupidly forgetting my wallet and having to run back home and up my 5 flights of stairs to go get it.... good thing I did too!). We went from store to store on Rue de Victor Hugo, mostly to get out of the crazy wind! But, I did find an amazing sale item in a reasonably priced store called Pimkie. Leather jackets are all the rage in Lyon these days and so I've sort of had my eye out for one that was nice, but not too expensive. I had almost given up because they were either not in my size or still too expensive even with the sales, but Hannah pointed out a rack with jackets marked down 60% off. A brown leather jacket, that was originally 80 euros was on sale for 32!!! Woo hoo! I tried it on in several sizes, picked the one I wanted and c'est parti! I have a nice brown leather jacket now:) (I have a feeling this rack of brown jackets was so on sale because brown is a much less popular color than black here, but I'd rather have brown anyway!)

After our windy shopping adventure, we went back to my apartment to make dinner, brownies (yumz) and watch some French tv and Steel Magnolias. We both laughed and cried and had a fun girlie night. (I hadn't seen the entire movie in a long time, but there are so many incredibly funny parts! "Miss Truvy, I promise that my personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair." hehe) Hannah spent the night (since her buses are so limited) and left a little while ago to get to work on her French paper. Since she's still technically in school, while they're on their year abroad they have to do research and write a long thesis type paper. It kind of makes me miss school, but then I think, wait a minute.... I don't think I miss it that much;)

Anywho- hope you all have a nice weekend! I'll be going to Agnès' house tomorrow for lunch. She's a pedagogical advisor that runs our in-service days and she is inviting us all over to her house in turns. This weekend is mine and I hear she's a fabulous French cook:)

Reste cool:)

My first double school day!

I'm amazingly not dreading doing another double day! On my way home from my first school, I was kind of thinking to myself, why did I say yes to this.... but after working with the two classes at the second school, I feel loved and needed:)

At my usual Thursday school, I'm getting annoyed that I'm sort of ignored sometimes (by the other teachers in the morning). I realize that they have important school things to discuss and whatnot- but I feel like it takes them forever to warm up to me...ask me how I'm doing, etc.... and while I'm teaching, I almost feel like I'm taking up their precious school time. I know for sure that they definitely don't do much English instruction without me there... and they're supposed to do it twice a week. A lot teachers, in all my schools, find it hard to take out an extra 20-30 minutes for English instruction when they need to focus on other subjects.... and I understand that they're going to teach things they feel most strong in when it comes to their extra-curricular instruction. None of the kids are tested in areas besides math and French (in terms of national testing), so similar to in the United States, things that may be listed in the curriculum or standards, but aren't tested, sort of fall by the waste-side (ie English, German, music, arts, science, etc.).

I know if Murielle were there, I probably wouldn't feel like this quite so much, but even sometimes in Anne-Laure's class, I get that feeling. I am also getting really frustrated with this school on their behavior management. Today, during lunch, I asked if they ever tried using behavior systems.... sort of test the water, see if they were open to hearing about how we do it in the US. They were like.... yeah, we've seen some before.... takes a lot of effort on the teacher's part to keep track of points or moving names... we go with the yell and punish approach... hahaha. I was like.... sort of shocked that they were so nonchalant about it. Do they not see that they're yelling at the same kids every time? They don't even explain why a kid is in trouble and work with them on what they should do the next time. One kid lied today, and the teacher just let him have it and then he wasn't allowed to go to library. He was never asked.... why did you lie?, oh because you have no glue.... well next time, ask me for glue, and don't lie. Something as simple as that could help rectify the problem the next time he needs to glue something into his notebook, but instead, he just resents the teacher.... and I can tell, already as a 6 year old, he hates school.

I also learned that the replacement, who is in the process of becoming a teacher, has no formal training. Working in schools as a replacement and learning from other teachers is her training, and thus, she will probably continue the yell and punish approach. Apparently, this way of becoming a teacher is new, but has changed in the last year. She's like in some middle group of new teachers who only need a certain amount of classroom time and the occasional in-service to learn pedagogical teaching theories and types of activities. I'm confused about the whole thing.... it appears that every teacher has had a different kind or amount of training.... but explains a lot of what I see. I know our system isn't perfect either, and isn't controlled at a national level like it is in France.... but they need to scrap the current system of how to become a teacher and mainstream it for a longer period of time than keeping something in place for 1-2 years! Seems nuts to change your pre-service teacher standards so frequently! (And to go from much higher standards to much lower standards...)

Anyway.... after talking with them at lunch, I was just ready to get home. It was cold outside and I wasn't looking forward to going to another school. When I got home it snowed really hard (nothing sticking), and I felt even less like going. But.... once I got there, I had a great time. I worked with a teacher I've only met once and she was great. I'd say she's in her mid-late 30's and she took notes on everything I did. I felt needed again:) And her kids were so excited to ask questions about the US (yep, got the "Do you see the stars?" question a few times), and they enjoyed learning about breakfast food....

It was a good lesson because a few items that we eat for breakfast, the French have started eating in recent years.... cereal, pancakes, bacon.... so the kids picked up on the vocabulary easily. They don't ever eat pancakes or bacon for breakfast, but they do eat cereal, yogurt, fruit, and pastries for breakfast, if they eat it at all. They were shocked that we would even consider firing up the stove in the morning.... or that we would eat eggs and bacon so early in the morning. They just aren't morning eaters! I was going to add oatmeal and grits to my list, but that would have been way too foreign a concept:) Hot food for breakfast? What are you nuts? (However, they think it's hilarious that we rarely eat hot lunches.... at least for kids at school who bring in sandwiches. What do you mean they can't use the microwave at lunch time if they bring their food?) I also explained pb&j (because they asked if I ate peanuts and laughed for some reason.... I was like, yes, and we eat peanut butter... on a lot of things). I once again got really shocked faces.... you put what with what? It's so funny that something so normal to us (pb&j) is so strange to them:)

Both teachers and classes I worked with were very thankful for me taking time out to come teach lessons and said that it was just what they were hoping for.... so it made me feel really good:) So- I guess I'll be doing my "double" until the March vacation.... and then Murielle will back after that...and I won't need my second school as a spirit-lifter, hopefully....

This afternoon I'll be lounging, making more materials (somehow I'm teaching emotions, age, body parts, clothes, snowmen, food, school supplies, and recipes all at the same time.... if only I could figure out a subject that all the teachers want to do at the same time....), and video chatting with some friends! Yay! Tonight starts my weekend:)

Reste cool:)

House Hunters- France

Well I would have written last night, but I got sucked into my new favorite show- Recherche Appartement ou Maison... aka House Hunters. There was one episode that took place in Lyon last night; it was so cool. It was like.... I knew exactly what they were talking about and where they were.... and I got to get a look inside some of those pretty apartments I've seen from the outside. I'm going to try my best to focus, even though I have it on in the background;)

Yesterday, I had a fun and pretty laid back day at school. Corinne was absent and so was Eve, so I only taught 3 classes (my 2 CP, and Elise's crazy CE1). With the CP classes, we did the Hokie Pokie. They LOVED it. They thought it was so funny... but they're quick to catch on to new vocabulary, so it was a perfect activity for them. I think they also liked to just get a chance to get out of their little desks and move!

Elise's class seems to be getting worse and every time I come out of it, I just think to myself.... what a crappy situation she's in. The kids have her 1 day a week, a man the other 3 who is apparently fairly harsh. So when they're with her, they go nuts.... but it doesn't seem that besides them being afraid of the other guy, there's any sort of behavior plan... and it seems like it would be an almost impossible feat for Elise to implement something so infrequently. These kids definitely need a full time teacher, none of this mi-temps stuff. I just don't know what I'd do in that situation! She really must go crazy having 4 different classes every week.

During lunch, I talked to a few teachers I don't normally talk with... We discussed the differences between public, private, and charter schools in America. For some reason, the teachers I've talked with always assume we have more private than public schools. And then when I say, nope most kids go to public school... with some who go to private or religious schools, they say, "Oh, just like France." Haha. Yes, just like it. I blew their minds with the charter school concept... and they were absolutely shocked to hear that some kids got into the school through a lottery system. They were like... that's so random! Yes- I thought, that is the point! Talking with Perrine, a CM1 teacher, I also figured out what I'm teaching Thursday afternoon in her class.... Breakfast food. Yumz. So in the afternoon, I made a bunch materials for that and got really hungry for some pancakes.... and bacon, and eggs.... and hash browns, grits, toast, muffins, scones, and more. I do love eating brioche and pain au chocolat every morning, but I miss a nice big brunch or breakfast for dinner meal!

Today, I got up and ready to work out and run some errands before going into Lyon to meet up with Hannah and Lindsey to go museuming. I should have had enough time to fit it all in, but for some reason the post office was packed (I needed to mail in paperwork that will hopefully get me my health care coverage). Then, I took a chance on running to pay my rent really quickly before my 11.03 bus left, but there was a line there too. Then, right before I was about to leave and leave it for another day, it was my turn and they weren't able to let me pay with credit card. And- on top of that, she told me I was late paying my rent. I was like.... uhh I got the bill yesterday. I'm not sure what was up with that, but I wasn't charged any sort of late fee. I asked if I could come back tomorrow and she said no problem. So I ran to catch the bus... and I saw it take off without me! UGH! I decided it just wasn't in the cards today to go into Lyon, went to withdraw money, and paid my stupid rent bill. Shew, at least it's done with for another month!

This afternoon I used my unexpected extra time to clean my scattered apartment, lesson plan, and attempt some yoga while the teens in the apartment below blared music.... and now I'm back to lesson planning/watching House Hunters.

Tomorrow, I'm teaching about animals and clothes in the morning (Berliet)....then switching gears and schools to teach breakfast food (Signoret)! Hopefully it goes well and I don't call butter boots or something silly. Although I don't know how I'd manage that.

Reste cool:)