Jumping Fences

Recently I have started giving English conversation lessons to a French woman who teaches management in Toulouse. She is particularly interested in how theaters are managed. Her research centers around talking to people and gathering qualitative data, which is not valued very highly here, so she often meets resistance. She presents her work at conferences, and has to present in English sometimes. Her husband is a math teacher at my school, and he gave her my info, and she contacted me for lessons. It was quite perfect how it all worked out. So now, we meet about twice a week to speak together in English. Sometimes we discuss her work, and sometimes she asks me to talk about life in America. She has two adorable children, and I go to her house to give lessons, so I always get to see them :)

I had a lesson tonight, and as usual it was a learning experience for us both. Talking with her gives me a French perspective unlike any I've had before, and she always has funny and interesting things to say.

For example, tonight she told me about how she would jump the fence in high school in order to avoid a 30 min long walk around the school to get to the other side. This led us to a discussion about crazy things teenagers do and she said, "I want to keep my daughter from becoming too wise. If she's too wise, she'll do a couple really stupid things. But if she's kind of wise, she'll do more stupid things, but they won't be as "highly stupid." (as she put it) Her logic makes sense in my mind, but the way she says things is always unique, since English is not her first language. 

Tea, crêpes, and the music of broadway!

This past Sunday (yesterday) I was invited by a teacher at my school to her house for an afternoon get-together. She invited the three language assistants (me, the Spanish assistant and the German assistant). All of us assistants have become friends, so we made the journey to her house together. It was a wonderful afternoon, and there were some other teachers from nearby schools that I was able to meet as well. Everyone was very interested in my Ultimate Frisbee endeavors. The afternoon was full of good conversation, tea, and crêpes! I tried a crêpe with melon jam (can't say I've ever had that before), and it was delicious.

Directly following, I attended a “Cabaret Broadway” show at a local theater. It was interesting because the songs were in French and English. The actors did not seem completely comfortable speaking English though, so it was quite an experience. I heard excerpts from Chicago (in French), Grease (in English),  Rent (in English), and a hippie musical (I’m skeptical as to whether or not this is a real musical because I had never heard any of the songs and they were a little strange).

After the show, I went home for some hot chocolate and marshmallows (courtesy of my mom J ).

All in all, 'twas a marvelously brilliant day.

The other day I accidentally raced a Kenyan...

On November 8, 2012 I posted the following to Facebook:

"Accidentally raced a Kenyan today. Obviously he won. But still. I gave him a run for his money for about 45 seconds."

After receiving some questions, I thought I should clarify...

What happened was this: I was running along, minding my own business and I heard someone coming up behind me...normally guys will speed up if they see a girl in front of them just to pass her (because boys cant stand losing to girls), so I always speed up a little to lose the guy, because I'm like pshhh. Usually when I speed up, they give up and fade back and I can go back to running peacefully by myself. But this time was different. The footsteps behind me didn't fade away. So I was like hmmm...so I sped up more and the person was still gaining on me. I continued speeding up and we got to a critical juncture where we had to go down stairs otherwise we'd fall into the river. I turned to go down the stairs and the guy was right behind me, but I still didn't see who it was. When I got down the stairs and continued running next to the river, the guy passed me and I finally saw that he was the Kenyan! haha (Maybe he wasn't a Kenyan, but he sure looked like one and there's a race coming up in Montpellier so I just assumed.) It was funny, and I was like, "Ok he's legit, it's fine if he passes me."

The end.

Où est la bibliothèque?

In Montpellier, there is an extensive network of libraries that is quite impressive. I am thoroughly enjoying all of the materials available to me. Also, all of the "checking out/checking in" of materials is done by the patron with an electronic computer. There is some chip or something in all of the items and you just place the item you want or are returning on this box and the computer magically knows what it is. It's pretty cool. The only bar code you scan is your library card. I'm almost surprised they don't use retina scanners....just kidding. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the library and I've gone there to chillax/read on multiple occasions. Also ive been discovering lots of cool music.

The only thing that is questionable about the libraries here is this... the other day I went into the music section and they were advertising hillbilly music. Legitimately. And they were playing it in the library too...I dont know how I feel about that. But everything else is just peachy.

The other day I went to the library to read "Biologie pour les nuls" (Biology for dummies) in French to brush up on French scientific terminology. It turns out that most of the words/terms are the same, but the order of the words is reversed, and they add a few accents. For example: RNA (Ribonucleic acid) is acide ribonucléique. Reading the book was a little experiment to see how I might fare in the scientific domain in France. Considering I have zero prior experience, I'd say it went pretty well.

I also just finished reading a great book called La délicatesse, and am currently reading The Alchemist (a book I love) in French.

Fédération Flying Disc France

So I just joined the FFDF, which allows me to officially play in tournaments with the club team in Montpellier. They have various competitions, some indoor, some outdoor, and some on the beach! All of the other team-members are French (except for one German guy studying abroad and several other American girls), so it is a very interesting mix of people. We have practice every Tuesday and Thursday night. By joining the team I doubled the amount of people I know from Montpellier in a matter of days.

At practices we work on throws, offense/defensive plays and various other aspects of the sport. We usually have beginners and experienced players, so it is helpful for me when the captain explains concepts to the beginners, because I learn a lot of French Ultimate Frisbee vocab! Surprisingly, a lot of expressions used are in English.

The other day I did a lesson on ultimate frisbee with a few of my classes - spreading the awesomeness of ultimate one country at a time!

Lovin' the Lycée

Every day I walk by the collège (middle school) through the mass of students, and every day I think how lucky I am to be teaching at the lycée (high school). I just don't think I could handle middle schoolers!

It's definitely no picnic teaching a bunch of high schoolers, though. The students like me, because I'm a break from their normal teachers, but I refuse to speak any french to them, so they don't always understand...and when that happens some of them start to tune me out. Sometimes it will be me talking to sea of students who are talking amongst themselves, and it's a little frustrating. In France students have side conversations willy nilly, even with their normal French teachers present, so they seem less disciplined than American students in that respect. All in all though, it's fun and I really like the age group because we can discuss pop culture things like music, movies and t.v. series that we have in common. 

Sometimes I even feel like a high school foreign exchange student. I'm basically the same size as the other high-schoolers and I kind of blend in with the crowd...

A Camelbak for a Towel Rack

An excerpt from an e-mail with a friend back home who bon voyage-ed me with a brand spanking new Camelbak water bottle (complete with filter) before I left for France...

"SO i LOVE this water bottle so much. I use it every day and I'm so happy that you gave it to me. Thank you thank you thank you!"

My roommate Fabrice always makes fun of me for it, though. He calls it my "baby bottle."

In France/Europe they don't seem to use Camelbaks (such a mistake on their part) but I'm happy to be reppin'

Also, on a completely different note, we have these towel racks here and they dry your towels/heat them up. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever encountered. I can't believe we don't have them aux etats-unis. So sad. très triste.

Oh well.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

A Camelbak for a towel rack.

When in Rome.