SORRY EVERYONE!!! I know its been forever since I've posted and I have three excuses, and you can take 'em or leave 'em... I've been real busy hanging out with people, getting prepaded to start teaching, or just knockin around town, 2.) I've been really tired a lot from all the walking i'm doing here or just the weird schedule of staying up till 3 one night and getting up at 11 or 12, then going to bed at 10 the next night to get up at 6am to teach. My schedule is kinda weird here lol, because i have to get up to teach early during the week, but on the weekend the soirée doesn't start until about 11 and goes till 4-6am... and finally the main reason i havent updated very often, MY INTERNET CONNECTION IS GARBAGE or as I hear from the brits here always, Rubbish lol... by the way the title of this post is "I swear to you all, I am still alive!" anyway, this morning i taught for the first time all by myself four classes back to back.. Lets just say that I have a lot to learn about how to teach children!! I spend the past 3 days in Clermont-Ferrand 100km away at the stage d'accueil which was like a meet-and-greet/ orientation session for all the assistants in the region. Although I received a good bit of instruction and training on how to teach the children, all the teachers were using tons of visual aids (flash cards, posters, storybooks, etc.) which I can't seem to get my hands on anything here in Moulins though I do have some flash cards. Another thing is that I get extremely nervous in front of the kids and I definitely didn't spend enough time preparing my lessons for today, but I was exhausted by the time I got home from clermont-ferrand last night so I didn't have much time to spend getting ready. I only have one day of classes with the same students as today then I won't teach again until after the Toussaints holiday which goes from Oct 24 - Nov 6. So i will have about a week and a half to start preparing my "real" lessons. Today was more of an introduction and basic stuff "Hello my name is Pierre, What's your name?" which i will have to probably do several more times. They told us at the stage that each lesson should be 10% new material and 90% review, so apparantly teaching a language to young children is a very slow process. Add the fact that most of my classes i only have one 45minute session a week, I don't see how they will learn much more than "hello my name is" over the next 9 months. Especially with the 8 weeks of vacation spread throughout the year. I am currently looking for an apartment here in Moulins, because I know now there is NO WAY i can stay in this foyer all year. The room is too small, the people here arent too friendly, its WAY too far from town (though two of my schools are right next door) its in the ugliest poorest quarter of moulins, it costs too much, and i cant cook. Currently I am spending almost all of my money paying for 2 meals a day either in the restaurant here (€6.35) or somewhere else (€ 5-10) Even a big mac meal at mcdonalds is € 6 which is absurd since thats twice as much as you would pay in the US when you convert the euros... And I find that Moulins is much more expensive than other parts of france...even bigger cities. its cheaper in Clermont-Ferrand and Montpelier than Moulins, which i dont understand at all. Rent is high here, food is expensive..i cant get a haircut for less than €18 which is rediculous because in montpellier i found a barber for €9. I doubt Euros have inflated that much in two years... So Im looking to share an apartment with the Mexican assistant, Lorenzo Recio. Then we can split all the bills and he can cook me some great mexican food, and i will cook him....ummm....pasta, vegetables, and hamburgers. I keep getting the question about american cuisine and im like...umm aside from a few casseroles and stuff down south, "american food" doesnt exist... As far as the upcoming vacations, I don't think I'm going to do anything because I need to prepare to start teaching plus I can't really spend any money right now. I might go back and spend a couple of days in clermont ferrand as some of the assistants there told me I could come stay with them. They are so lucky, Clermont is AMAZING with two universities, tons of young people, libraries and great shopping every where (for example a four-story FNAC, which is kinda like best buy but better, more books and media, less hardware stuff)
So as far as what I've been doing lately, really im still trying to get settled in still...there is constantly something I still need to buy so I'm shopping a lot but trying not to spend too many Euros. My birthday was fun, I hung out with Toni and some of his friends, and all the assistants invited me to this little bar where they had a cake and stuff, which was really nice considering we had all just met. As far as the assistants are concerned we are all getting along GREAT! We definately have a range of personalities and the chemistry is awesome within the group. Its really a shame that we arent all lodged at lycee banville. Natalie (germany), Santiago (argentina), Lizette (american), Jennifer (canadian), and Aimee (scottish) all live at the Lycee Banville. Jan (germany) just found a studio so he lives downtown alone, and the last two of us, me and Lorenzo (mexico)still live in the foyer but we both hate it...we are looking for a furnished apartment which is not easy or cheap here in moulins. Also im worried that if we live together we wont be able to get the CAF which is the program where the government subsidizes your rent, for example if i stay here, i will only end up paying about € 110 of the €300 rent (For the studio) or € 260 for the room. Also the lycee is real uppity about us coming to visit during the week because there are students who live there during the week too and apparantly there was an incident with some foreign students last year, bringing like 30 people into the lycée, throwing a party, and i think some girls ended up running around the campus naked and screaming at 3am, so now they are kinda uptight about us coming in, even though its just two of us...but what is cool is during the weekend, no one is there, not even the surveillant. I will explain the lay out, a lycee is a usually fenced in compound with several buildings with classrooms, living facilities, a cafeteria and administrative offices. I will try to take some pictures to show you, but there is one main door that must be opened with a key or by the guy at the reception. but on the weekends, the language assistants are the only people in the whole compound, so we usually get together and cook dinner together in the kitchenette and just hang out, watch a dvd, go out together, or whatever. Its actually quite fun. it makes me wish i lived there, or at least within walking distance.
anyway i have tons more i want to say, but im going to take a nap...plus my internet just croaked so i dont even know if I will be able to post this...wish me luck!
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2 comments:
Hey man, awesome post. Good luck with getting a new place, I know you feel like a caged animal, silly as I remember this one time where me and you lived in something like that...cant remember though. ;)
Hey man, awesome post. Good luck with getting a new place, I know you feel like a caged animal, silly as I remember this one time where me and you lived in something like that...cant remember though. ;)
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