mes collèges

I believe I’ve been here almost 4 weeks now, and I feel like I’m finally settling down into a routine. I’ve been at both of my schools now for a couple of weeks each, and I now know where most things are and how to get to them, which is quite key.

I work at two schools in the region of La Celle St Cloud. They are both collèges, which is basically a middle school. The kids are aged 11-15. Victor Hugo is my main contact school, and by far my favourite. They are always helpful, and laidback. Plus, it’s really easy to get to and the teachers are all nice. The students at both schools are just as I expected them to be…a slightly disinterested, highly fashionable mass of hormones that generally listen and rarely understand anything that I say. On the whole, it’s pretty good.

Now Pasteur, the other school, is a bit of a different story. It’s alright I guess, but it has its…drawbacks. Now I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but the main teacher I work with there is nothing short of a bitch. She is not nice to the students, makes me JUDGE their English, with them standing alone in front of the class (honestly, if I can understand what they are saying, that’s all that matters), and makes remarks about me not working. I don’t think she understands that I’m an assistant and have no actual teaching experience, and that learning a language does not mean perfection, but enough to communicate with others. Anyway, she is terrible. Sometimes she is not insane, but when she is, it’s not a good day. Also, the school is not at all convenient to get to. There is no direct bus, and to get there the fastest way, I have to walk uphill (and this is a steep climb) through a freaking forest. However, I think I have mastered the bus system so that I will always just be on time, which really, is good enough for me.

Aside from that rant fest, I really don’t mind it. The French education system is fairly different from Canada’s but I’m getting used to it. We have a holiday coming up starting Saturday for almost 2 weeks! Unfortunately for us, they have scheduled our medical visits (I can’t WAIT to see what that entails) right in the middle, but I think Missy, Kevin and I are going to try to visit Spain for a little bit. We shall see.

Everything else in Paris is going smoothly. We’ve had two weeks of beautiful weather, and hopefully this trend will continue aside from today.

Until next time,
Keep fit and have fun.
©KG™

photos

hé kids

i've created a link to my photo site. it's on the right, handily under the links section called "my photos". i have developed an aversion to posting on facebook right now, so if i post photos, that is where they will be.

The only ones up are just some more of the apartment (by popular demand: aka joyce) so it's not too exciting at the moment. When you first click, it will say there is no content in the folder, but click on the sub album called "our apartment", and voila, pictures will appear.

enjoy

grève SNCF

One of the things one must do when living in a foreign land is to try and experience as much of the culture as possible. Lucky for me, tomorrow I will be experiencing something so typically French, it basically makes me an automatic citizen…I will be getting a day off work due to a transit strike. That’s right. It’s my very first strike as a French employee! I feel like I’ve finally arrived. I have been waiting for one as I have been told that striking is as French as baguettes. I didn’t actually think it would arrive within three weeks of being here, but here we are. So tomorrow I’m going to sleep in and watch the thousands of cars and people that will be cramming the streets below, as they still need to get to where they are going because Paris doesn’t stop, only it’s transportation does.

Le sigh. God bless the French.

Le début

Salut et bienvenue! Here it is, my first post from Paris. I have been in the country for almost two weeks now, but I didn’t have any time before now. It has been hectic, let me tell you.

The first week was mainly fixing our sleep patterns (we did not sleep on the way over) and trying to get some paperwork done. See, this takes awhile, because they like to send you away to send you back to send you away again. It is lovely. I still don’t have a bank account, but I can’t get that if don’t have other things, and so the circle goes.
This week was quite busy. I was at the school for at least 4 hours Monday, Tuesday, and Friday and with a two hour commute both ways, that adds up to a lot of time. Add a day and a half of training, apartment hunting, sharing a room with four other people, foraging for food and trying to find sleep, there wasn’t a whole lot of time to do anything else. Monday and Tuesday of this week were especially hard. Missy and I were searching for accommodation together and we had just been officially declined from two apartments, and hadn’t heard back from countless others, and if we did it was too expensive or in a sketch neighbourhood. Also, my bank card was not allowing any withdrawals, or anything, so money was starting to get tight.

BUT our luck turned around on Wednesday. I had been in contact with this one agency that I found on craigslist, but the apartment was only until February and the agent seemed reluctant to arrange a meeting so that we could see the place. On Wednesday though, the place was still available and we came to have a look and FELL IN LOVE. It was perfect. The owner said that a lot of people had been looking at it, so we thought we might be rejected again. So, when I got the call on Thursday morning that the place was ours, it’s safe to say that the word ecstatic did not do my mood justice. And when she told us that we could have it until May with the possibly of extension, well, you can imagine how I felt then. So here I am, in my two-room apartment on the seventh floor (without an elevator!) but a view that is too good to be true. Look, there’s Sacre-Coeur, the top of the Pantheon, the Montparness Tower, the towers of Notre Dame, and if you lean slightly out the window at night, the Eiffel Tower. Not too shabby for two Canadian Anglophones for just two weeks in Paris.

I kid. We know we are lucky bastards.

I have also started teaching, but that will be another post.
A bientôt