C'est Nice

We had our first day of rain yesterday. By we, of course, I'm referring to us assistants, and by "day of rain," of course, I'm referring to the fact that it started raining around midnight Tuesday night and finished raining around midnight last night. It wasn't terrible rain, certainly, but boy, oh, boy was it persistent! If I had that kind of stamina, man, what couldn't I do, really?

This is the first week of classes, last week being some sort of weird exercise in brevity. I managed to make it to all of my Monday classes, which is nothing to thumb one's nose at, given that last week I had to race to the bank during the first one (in order to get a little slip of paper that was standing between me and my October paycheck), made the second two, and then couldn't find the fourth because the teacher was absent and the classroom had changed. Actually, all of the classrooms on my schedule are wrong, and I've become very good friends with the people in the administration office. Anyways, the important thing is this week, I've made all my classes so far, actually. Granted, I've only had six up till now. Four on monday, tuesday is my day off, two early on Wednesday; I've got two more this afternoon and then another four tomorrow, although one of them doesn't meet, and I haven't totally figured out why, but rather, have just accepted it as an unavoidable reality. That seems to be working much better for me these days.

I've been doing a lot of "garsh, it's hard to be a teacher" this week. I can't remember whether kids in my high school were always just like these french kids or whether we actually were different (granted, us Lowellites were never all that normal)Of my lessons so far, the students have been more or less okay, except for one group yesterday morning. I had only ten kids, or so, in the class. We were watching clips of Lost, something, I'd like to think, would be a lot of fun for them. I've seen their textbook, and personally, bashing one's head into the wall repeatedly would probably be more fun than working with the book, but hey, I'm trying to do something fun, different, out of the box, if you will.So we're watching Lost, granted, not in their native language (but it is an English class, so you can't fault me for that) and I'm asking them questions, trying to help them understand, being very active and what have you, and these three kids sitting right in front of me keep chatting away. The first time, I say "Excuse me," and they shut up for about ten seconds, and then start right up again. I swear to god, keeping this kids quiet was like trying to hold water in your hands. It was as if they thought I could only hear with my eyes, and every time I looked away it was okay to start talking. I wanted to say, "Shit, guys! I'm standing right here! I can hear every word you say!" I had to settle with an end-of-the-lesson "My job is to get you to speak English, and we can do it while watching TV, or we can do it while reading some really boring text; If you guys can't keep quiet, we're doing the second." They seemed kind of surprised, as if showing that much resolve was much more than they had expected from some American. It was bad news bears.

In other news, Amalea and her friend Scott, currently in the middle of the 2005 world tour, are passing through this weekend, their last stop in Europe before swinging up to Paris to catch a flight to Buenos Aires. I'm excited to see them, although it's unclear who's going to be around the Lycée for them to meet. We have this vacation coming up already, for the Toussaint holiday (which basically means All Saint's Day). It's strange to be getting this much time off so soon (and believe me, I know a thing or two about time off with this job), although the real kicker is that we haven't been paid yet, something that has severely restricted my travel plans. I had fantasized about a trip to dublin, but the airfares aren't working in my favor; I think the best thing is just to settle for a trip to Paris, which really isn't settling at all; I'll be able to quench my thirst for movies. I need to see Serenity (which is playing in Nice, but only in French), as well as the new Wallace and Gromit movie (same problem). And then, of course, I'll pick up whatever else is playing. I may even be able to stay there for free, at a friend of Annapaola's flat... we'll see. If not, I've found an affordable hostel, and I'll just have to shorten my stay. We'll see.

Anyway, I think that'll do for now. Hope everyone is well. Hey, fact for the day: it is roughly the same temperature in SF, NYC and Nice, at the moment... low sixties (or as they like to say over here, dix-huit degrés). Oh! I've bought my ticket home: I'm arriving Tuesday the 13th of December and staying until Thursday the 5th of January. Yes, I'm taking more than a few days off of work, but as far as the authorities are concerned, it was the only affordable airfare. I don't really feel all that bad considering they haven't paid us yet. So there. Plllfffbbt.

Word to everyone's mother.