Weather, Work, Winter Solstice, and Wanderings

Weather: The sun just came out yesterday for the first time in two weeks. I wish I were exaggerating. The second of the two weeks was particularly miserable since there was never ending rain. I never thought of myself as someone who minded rain or weather all that much. When we first got our school assignments, a lot of other assistants were complaining about the weather in Brittany. I rolled my eyes and generally felt superior because really, if I could get through 3.5 winters in Wisconsin and another 18 in Chicago, surely some rain wouldn’t bother me. These worrywarts were clearly a bunch of southern wimps who had no idea how bad cold could get or what a real Midwestern winter was like.

Yeah.

Maybe I’m just going soft, but I will now officially state that I was very, very wrong and that everyone else whining about the weather was right. I never think of Chicago or Milwaukee being sunny—you want sun, you go to Provence—but I have since revised that opinion. You do not usually go more than a day or two without at least seeing some sun. And when the windchill is forty below, at least you have sun to look at. Not so, here. Here, even if it doesn’t usually dip below freezing, there is rain, more rain, mist, fog, and then even more rain. Anyway, thankfully the sun is back and hopefully it’ll stick around for a day or two.

In other weather news, we had a fantastic weather diversion about a week and a half ago with the presence of snow. Everyone, everyone, told me that it never snowed in Brittany. Rain, cold, yes. Snow, no. Well, they lied, because there were some definite snow flurries. I was thrilled by this, much preferring snow to rain. I went off to school as normal, quite cheered up by the Christmassy weather. I arrived at school to find that there were pretty much no students.

No, not another grève. Instead, all the school buses had been canceled due to the snow (and at this point no snow had even stuck to the ground!). More than half of the school uses the school buses to get there, so there went that half. And, in the wonderful solidarity the French share, when half the school can’t get there, everyone else decides to stay home, too. My first class had no students, my next class had one, and my last class was canceled because the professor couldn’t make it. You see, in addition to the school bus people being terrified to drive, so was the rest of the region. I had been warned that when it snowed, people didn’t go out, and it turns out that was completely true. It wasn’t exactly necessary that day, but the next day there was actually the thinnest layer of snow on the ground, which had fallen over night and not melted! Naturally, the school buses were canceled again. In all fairness to the French, the area is really not at all equipped to deal with snow, even just the slightest bit. They hadn’t plowed or salted the roads (or the sidewalks, which led to me almost killing myself as I tried to walk into school). I actually had a few students in my first two classes that day, but no one showed for the last one. During a fifteen minute break in the middle of the day there was some more snow falling, and it also managed to stick to the ground for a full, oh, ten minutes before it melted. The students immediately took advantage of this by having a snowball fight outside during the break. I felt bad that they had to scrape the ground to get up enough snow to make a snowball, but they didn’t seem too bothered by it.

Work: As a combination of the snow, exams that were going on a few weeks ago (it was the end of the trimester), and various other things going on this week, I have had a lot of classes canceled lately. Shocker, I know. I’m getting a bit frustrated about how much I don’t get to work, especially because I’ve discovered that I absolutely love teaching high schoolers. I taught a class Monday morning on one of my personal favorite Christmas songs, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” The class first had to fill in the blanks on a worksheet with the lyrics, while listening to the song a couple times. They were singing along with the song by the second time through, which made my heart happy. We then went over some of the harder constructions and the occasional tricky word before I put them in pairs. They had to write a dialogue between a child who wants a hippo for Christmas and a parent, and then each group performed it for the class. They got quite creative with the dialogues (one girl’s rationale for needing a hippo was that her dear pet crocodile had just died), and I had a great time watching them. Even better, their regular teacher told me yesterday that they absolutely loved the lesson. That was easily the highlight of my week. Now if I could just once work all of the hours I’m supposed to in a week!

Winter Solstice Markets: This section is actually about Christmas Markets, but Christmas doesn’t start with a ‘w’ so for the sake of consonance, and, more specificially, alliteration (awww yeah, who paid attention in English class in HS?), we’re going with Winter Solstice.

The Marchés de Noël opened at the beginning of December, and this week I had a chance to explore them a bit. One reminded me a lot of the St. Nick’s Bazaar at St. Gertrude’s, with lots of people selling jewelry, knickknacks, incense, delicious looking chocolate covered fruits, and, of course, lots of food. I had a delicious galette saucisse, a slightly-less delicious tartine jambon et raclette (too dry and too salty), and, best of all, some tartiflette. Tartiflette is a delicious concoction that consists of potatoes, butter, onions, small pieces of ham, and probably some more butter. The portions of tartiflette are huge, so I brought a bunch back with me and will be enjoying it as a side for my dinners for the rest of the week.

The other Marché de Noël in Rennes is at Place de la Mairie, and it was clearly the more expensive of the two markets. They had artists doing demonstrations, but I was scared to get too close to anything, because the prices were so outrageous. I did not want to be the one responsible for breaking a €300 piece of pottery just to get a glimpse of the potter at work. Though there were some very pretty pieces of jewelry and such, they were all far out of my budget.

Wandering: I decided this week that it was time to forego a Saturday morning run in lieu of a Saturday in the city. Yesterday I returned to the Marché des Lices, which is the only place I’ve found that has romaine lettuce regularly, and while I was there I picked up some Kouign Amman, because I couldn’t resist (I have since discovered that the name, which is in Breton, translates literally to butter cake). I then talked Adriana, the Spanish assistant, into going back to the tea house I was at last time. One of these days I’m going to splurge on some loose leaf tea from them, because it’s amazing.

From there we did a lot of wandering. We stopped by the Marchés de Noël, entertained ourselves in a kitchen store (I so want to own everything in that store, even though that would only be practical if I decided to stay in one place for an extended amount of time), stopping in a grocery store, and ducking our heads in any other stores that called to us (I successfully managed to not buy anything despite the fact that Adriana kept dragging me into shoe stores, which sorely tested my resolve). The other big stop that I had for the day was at the Franco-American Institute, which has a lovely library of books in English. I am going through severe book withdrawal, and so I had decided that something needed to be done before I started ordering massive amounts of books from Amazon UK (books which I would then somehow have to take back to the US…or leave here, and then go and purchase more copies of in the US, because I like having my own copies of books). For some odd reason, several things which are free in the US (such as checking accounts and libraries) are not so in France, so I had to shell out €20 for my library card there. However, I also checked out the second two books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, and after doing some quick conversions in my head, I realized that if I’d wanted to buy those two books, it would’ve cost me €21. So the library card already saved me more than my initial investment, and now I have a large supply of English books to read for the next five months. Phew!

Weather Part II: I wrote this over several days, so I have another weather addendum. We had exactly one day of sun and one day of partial sun before the clouds came back (yesterday). If anyone knows of any jobs where I can live in Provence for the rest of my life, please do let me know. I miss having months of sun at a time…

Postcards, Work, and Upcoming Adventures

Oh dear, it appears I’ve gotten rather behind on the blogging. This always happens…the more I have going on, the less time I have for blogging, but the more things I have to blog about. This is a dilemma.

First of all, I’m announcing a postcard contest (largely as a means of getting people to send me things). While I’m normally quite neurotic about putting my address on the internet, I do not believe anyone could find me out in farmland if they tried, and since I don’t even have a street address, I think I’m safe. Unless the cows decide to attack. Then I’m a goner. ANYWAY, my address is:
Katherine Jacob
Le Vallon
35230 Noyal-Chatillon-Sur-Seiche
France
Those who send me the coolest postcards will get fame and fortune when I post photos of the postcards on my blog, and I will get things to hang on my wall. Everyone is happy! To motivate you, we have the two postcards I have already been sent. The first came from Hope, and is of a candy store in Ohio:

The second came from Anna, and is an American Girl postcard:

Now it’s up to you guys to try and top those two (and, most importantly, give me things to put on my wall, which is in dire need of decoration).

Picking up from last Friday, we did have quite a few students on strike again that day. I had three classes, which were fine. The only one that stood out was the last one, with a small group of six terminales. They were working on an immigration debate, and I had a lot of fun helping them out with it. They were each assigned roles and they had to plan out the arguments they were going to make. It reminded me a lot of the plays we used to do in high school French that involved such wonderful situations as me being a fortune teller and Kayla being Paris Hilton, or Kelsey and I running out of a restaurant because we didn’t have enough money to pay for the bill. I strongly approve of putting on plays as a means of teaching language, and the kids were having a blast working on it. One of the girls spoke English really well, which was great, except that one of her best friends could barely speak at all, so girl one just kept translating for her. Efficient, yes. A good way to learn English, no. This happens a lot, I think because there are so many different levels of English in each class, and I’m still trying to figure out the best way to address it. With just a small group of students, it’s not too hard, but when you have twenty kids at a time, it’s a little more tricky.

Friday evening was most exciting. Yannick, the former boarder, had finally moved out (two weeks late due to French bureaucracy, as usual) and I finally got to unpack my suitcases and get settled in my real room. My new room gets internet reception, which is awesome, and I also get a bathroom to myself now. I’ve never had my own bathroom before in my life, so I may get a bit spoiled this year. I also have my own kitchen now, which I’m really excited about. It’s nice to be able to cook my own food again and decide when I do and don’t want to eat. Of course, Denise is still terribly afraid that I’m starving to death, so she tends to bring me soup and dessert every night. I will not object, especially if she keeps brining me semoule, which is a rice pudding type of dessert. It is amazing and the best non-chocolate thing I have ever tasted in my life. I do not know how I survived this long without it, nor can I even begin to figure out why it’s so good. Denise taught me how to make it, and all that goes in is some milk, then the semoule, then some sugar. SO GOOD.

Friday evening I also began to feel as though I was coming down with a cold, and Saturday this fact was cemented, and I was less than pleased. I thus didn’t do anything terribly adventurous on Saturday, just went for a run, did some grocery shopping (where I bought five kilos of potatoes since there was a ridiculous sale…something tells me I’ll be eating a lot of potatoes in the future), and then had dinner with one of the teachers at the school and his family. He has two daughters, who are five and ten, and his wife is also an English teacher, although she works in a middle school. I forget the name of what we had for dinner, but it was essentially melted cheese and bread. Gotta love the French—they understand that melted cheese, a little salad, and some bread constitute a perfectly delicious meal. Yum! There was also apple crumble for dessert, which I was excited about. The French don’t really get into the apple products in the fall aside from the occasional tarte aux pommes (which is more tarte than pommes), so I was glad that someone understood the importance of apples topped with butter, flour, and sugar, served with a side of vanilla ice cream. I had a really fun time, and they also lent me some English books to read. Considering the fact that I’m fast exhausting Chicago Public Library’s online book selections, this was very appreciated.

Monday was an almost normal day at school, with both students and teachers present, though I did have one class canceled. Nothing too interesting happened, although I did lead a small group discussion on a photo of the border between Mexico and the US. The English classes focus on a lot on presenting documents, since that’s what the terminales have to do on their bac exam at the end of the year. It’s an interesting way to go about learning a language—they learn a lot about giving descriptions, but I’m not sure that they’re learning anything all that useful should they actually want to speak English in their daily lives. The bac is hugely different from the AP French exam that I took when I was in high school—the only similarities are that there is a listening section, and for some of the sections, there’s also a section where they record themselves. There’s no multiple choice, and all of the essays involve presenting documents. After class I went into Rennes to run some errands, and I successfully procured a travel mug, which I was quite desperate for. I also picked up some small things to decorate my room—a picture of telephone booths in London to hang on the wall, a matching trash can, a rug, and a fleece blanket. The blanket was bought just in the nick of time, because it got COLD this past week.

I slept in late on Tuesday, largely due to some cold medicine Denise gave me. The French do love their pharmacies and medicaments, and I have finally been convinced by the cold medicine I took this week. It kept me functioning quite well! Once I finally woke up, I worked on laundry and lesson plans, because there was (surprise, surprise) another grève. Grève=no buses=Katherine stuck in farmland. Sigh.

Wednesday several professors were striking again. I think there might’ve been some students striking as well, but there seemed to be a decent number of kids there. I had a really good class with some terminales who are reading My Antonia. I hadn’t read the book before, and while I liked it, that was largely due to the fact that I love pioneer stories and was raised on Laura Ingalls Wilder. And even for me, the end got very slow and boring. The kids reading it are not at all fans of the book, and the professor spends class time simply going over reading comprehension questions on the text and having the students read out loud. In theory, this is also what I’m supposed to be doing with my half of the group. However, I am an English major who likes to hear what everyone has to say and who wants to get past reading comprehension and into thematic discussions, so that doesn’t work so well for me. I end up powering through the comprehension questions and then work on starting a discussion. This didn’t work very well the first week, largely because I suspect many students hadn’t read. Then, however, I gave them a lecture about reading and about looking up (or at least asking about!) words that they don’t know. This week the discussion was much more successful, probably because in addition to the fact that the students had read, I also asked them what they thought about the book. The general consensus was that they hated it, and I told them they were perfectly entitled to think that as long as they gave me proof. We ended up having an excellent class discussion about what things Cather could’ve done to make the book better, and I had an absolute blast. Yay for lit discussions!

Wednesday afternoon Adriana and I went into Rennes to fight with bureaucracy in an attempt to get free transport and to enroll in Social Security here (medical coverage). We did not succeed in getting free transport (we both got redirected to other offices), but we did finally get registered with Sécu. Of course, once we get paid we have to go back there to give them more forms, but such is life in France. After that adventure, I met up with two other assistants at a place that I had been told had excellent hot chocolate. It was quite delicious, and it was nice to socialize a bit since I’d spent the last weekend nursing my cold in solitude. Three other assistants ended up joining us, and we stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, chatting and joking, and it was quite enjoyable.

Wednesday night was the first frost, and I woke up Thursday very cold. Sigh. And, to make matters worse, the students were on strike again, meaning that I had a very boring day at school. I took the bus after classes to Noyal, the town where my address technically is, even though it’s about three small towns away from where I’m actually located. This was where I had been told to go for free transport. Naturally, there was lots of confusion there, and after a phone call to someone in Rennes, it was determined that I should go back into the city (but to a different office this time) since the people in Noyal didn’t really know what to do with me. Sigh again. Still no free transport. Maybe by March…

Some students were still on strike Friday, but a surprising number of them decided to make an appearance on the last day before their week and a half long break. I spent my first class working with various small groups on Indigenous/Native American history. They really didn’t know a lot about the subject, so I gave them some vocabulary and then talked a little about the relationship between Europeans and Indigenous Americans. I only had about twenty minutes with each group, so we didn’t have time to get much beyond that. Later in the morning, I had one really good session with terminales. I was working with a group of eight, and I had them working on the following Frazz comic strip:

Yes, I make my students read my favorite comic strip. This will continue until the end of the year, so for their sake, I hope they like it. I had blocked out the text on the last panel, and so we spent the first part of the time talking about national anthems, patriotism, and how they feel before a big test. No one was very interested in talking, so I finally just called on people (turns out that when you don’t give them a choice they actually have quite a few things to say). I had some of them guess why you might want to sing the national anthem before a test (one student said it would give the kids courage going into a big test, which I thought was a reasonable guess). After that I revealed the text that had been missing and we started out by attacking the vocabulary and expressions used (it was definitely tough for them, since there’s an implied precursor to Frazz’s if-clause, celebrities in France don’t sing the national anthem before big events, and they had no idea what it meant to make a moment last). At the end we finally pieced together what was funny about the comic strip, everyone got it, and I was quite happy with what they’d done.

That’s about it for now. I have been thoroughly boring thus far this weekend—I was supposed to go to a dinner party, but it was canceled. So I’ve been hanging out in my lovely room and getting ready for my upcoming adventures. I leave on Monday for Paris and Strasbourg, which I’m very excited about. And, even better for you, that means I will have pictures to post when I return and maybe you’ll get a break from endless text (the crowd goes wild). Don’t worry, I’ll still have novellas to post about what I did during my adventure, it’ll just take longer to get those up than to post the pictures.

Happy Fall to everyone, and go eat something pumpkin-y for me…I would kill for some pumpkin bread right about now.