The Return of the Long-Awaited Blog Post!

Hello all, yes I know that it has been far too long and that you are all anxiously awaiting a new blog posts on your computer ;p, and some of you have even been asking me directly to make one (::cough:: mom ::cough::) but I did not have internet access at my place until yesterday so I was unable to make one!  Now I am back and have so much to tell you! 

The view from my apartment window

In my last post I told you all that after much work I was able to find an apartment right in the heart of the city that is absolutely fantastic.  I met my upstairs neighbor yesterday who speaks English pretty well which is cool and we had a good conversation about trips and traveling and such, so at least I know that one of my neighbors is cool!  I know that all of you have anxiously been waiting for photo documentation of my new digs, so without further adieu, here you go! 

So far France has been awesome, and I am pretty sure that it is going to stay that way.  I have already had some crazy adventures.  My other American friend Lindsey and I were hanging out in a bar speaking English and these two French boys came over and say with us because they wanted to speak English.  Alas they were horrible at it so in reality they butchered English and we responded in English and then had to translate into French because they didn't get it at all.  One of them even asked us if we could speak with a British accent because they could understand that better.  I responded curtly by asking him if he could speak with a southern French accent for me in return, I think he got my point because he dropped the idea of us speaking with British accents. 

It turns out that these guys were engineering students at a school in Angers called ENSAM and they invited us to come to a party at their school bar (because schools have bars in them here).  Probably wasn't the best idea but Lindsey and I agreed and our adventure began.  We were lead across the river to the school and taken down a back entrance, to an old monastery which serves as the dorms.  This is so crazy to me by the way because these people are living in a building built in the 14th century like it is no big thing.  We were lead through a room with this symbol painted on the floor and down a dark hallway (at this point Linds and I had a bad feeling) and then we turned a corner to find a bunch of drunk bearded nerds in robes.  All Lindsey and I could do was burst out laughing.  This was kind of like a fraternity for the school in which they all wear these decorated robes and don't shave for a year.  The boys that brought us left us to go get their robes and the everything got a LOT less creepy.  In the end it ended up being harmless fun and the boys thought we were hilarious and all they wanted to know was about the differences between American and French university.  Overall it was a very good night, and something that I have never seen or experienced in my life before. 

Bedroom/Main room...yes that's a futon!

 Over the next couple of days I started work at the Lycée David d'Angers which turned out to be very disorganized and stressful but fun nonetheless.  I work at this point with 5 different teachers in 12 different classes of about 30 students each.  I have no idea how I am going to learn my students name's there are so many to remember!  The school is huge and super confusing, I find myself getting lost all the time, and wandering around like a big idiot because I still don't have my schedule down pat yet.  The first week is primarily just observation in the classes.  I mostly come in and answer questions like what is my name, where I am from, and my favorite "why are you here?"  It is funny because every class that I go into I have experienced the same thing from the students.  All the boys are super interested and ask lots of questions (primarily about sports) while all the girls look me up and down and glare.  Hopefully the girls will warm up to me too or this is going to be a really long year. 

Two of the classes have been particularly interesting because I had to do more than just observe in them.  In the first one I had to take a group of students to my own classroom and teach them a lesson that the teacher had prepared for me.  It was pretty fun but a little overwhelming to just be thrown into things on day two.  The students were pretty engaged but one girl did most of the talking.  I will need to work on getting the other kids to talk even if they are shy and/or don't want to. 

In the other eventful class, I was put in front of a terminale class (the highest level) and they asked me questions.  I was preparing for the usual questions like where am I from and why did I choose to come to France.  Nope these kids decided to ask me extremely intense questions like "what do you think about the differences in social security in France versus in America" or "do you think that if there was stricter gun control things like Columbine could have been averted?" I was not expecting to have to answer questions on behalf or all Americans but that is what they asked me.  The teacher just stared at me waiting for a response just like her students.  My favorite question that I got in most of my classes that made me laugh was "do you own a gun?" These kids think that the average American has a gun and that it is normal for everyone to have a gun.  Without thinking I stupidly responded that I didn't but that my sister did which made them think that their assumptions were right that all Americans have guns.  They then asked me if she was a member of the NRA but when I tried to explain that it was because my grandfather is super into guns and got it for her and that she wasn't the stereotypical American they were lost.  So now I think that they think that I am a gun toting Republican.  Haaha, I guess there are worse things to be.

Wednesday was the stage, or orientation session for the program in Nantes.  I went the day before because my friend Lindsey lives there and I wanted to say hello.  I roll up to her foyer and meet a friend of her's who also has her stage the same day as me and knew when and where we were going because her school had given her a paper with all the information (mine had not).  I began talking to her about what she was doing at her school and began to realize that my school had just kind of left me out to dry and I had not completed any of the paperwork that I should have so I started to get nervous, but I thought that maybe she just had a particularly good school so I let it go and the next day we arranged to go to the stage together.  We left an hour before the stage started and hoped on a tram and then two buses.  We rode the bus to where we thought we were supposed to go but we were wrong and ended up getting lost and had to walk for 30min in the rain up hill.  Eventually we found the building (whose address was wrong and not on google maps) a half an hour late and I proceeded to rush into the meeting and tripped down the stairs in front of everyone.

As the meeting proceeded I realized the fears about my school were in fact correct because I was the only one that had to go get a bank account, find housing and all things like that without help from the school (thank god I had Sue) and I was the only one that had not signed payroll information because my contact person had not helped me at all.  I broke down and talked to the head of the program who was outraged and took down my information and told me that they would fix everything.  I am really glad there was this meeting or I wouldn't have even known about the paperwork that I had to do. 

On Thursday a woman who was at the meeting who represents a different school took me to my school and talked to people about how upset I was and everything got sorted out, but now it is a bit awkward because the teacher who was supposed to be in charge got a yelled at.  I hope that it all blows over and we can put this all behind us and work together in the future.  At this point I am nothing but optimistic!

Well, that brings you all up to date somewhat, I promise that I will blog more often now that I have internet access!