Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Or as pronounced by one of my kids, "happy sexgiving!"

The teacher and I had a laugh about that.

Bisous and hugs

MCJ

This post was supposed to be about Fest-Noz

But I failed in transferring the folder with the pictures and videos onto my usb this morning, so Fest-Noz will have to wait. Probably for the best given that I've got a little sickness going on.

Some scattered thoughts on teaching:

Teachers make an incredible difference. Without going into detail, how the teacher treats their class is fairly evident from how the class treats each other and how they treat me. This also tends to translate into how much time they give me to prepare something for the class. On the fly creation of lessons does not go well. When I have time to prepare something (and this really doesn't have to be a lot, it can just be looking up of games and such), the class goes much much better.

Rowdy kids can either be a blessing or a curse. When I've got a super energetic kid, I try to harness their energy and enthusiasm into something productive for the class. Let's be buddies, rowdy kid, work with me! When this works, it's a beautiful thing. Sometimes, however, the student just really doesn't want to do this. They don't give me a chance and frankly I don't see the collège kids enough to establish a rapport that could lead to fixing this.

Primary school kids are incredibly well-behaved. This is in part because there is zero tolerance for misbehavior. Primary school is where the children learn how to be students. Some collège kids decide to casually forget this once they've changed schools, plus there's the fact that they're becoming teens. Oh teens. Les ados. In my CE1 (first grade ish) yesterday, a storm started up outside. The classroom has a wall of windows that look out onto the playground. The teacher noticed that some of the children were distracted. "Oh is this the first time you've seen rain? No. This is unacceptable, you don't stare out the window for rain, for snow, for anything." But then he had all the class stare out the window for a few seconds so they could get their fix. "C'est trop beau!" one child cried. After that, the kids weren't distracted by the rain. Impressive.

Kids that don't try make me sad. Instead of trying and making a mistake, they just go straight to "sais pas" with puffed out cheeks and a little pop sound. Especially when it's something simple like "what's your name?" that all the other students have attempted and succeeded at before them. They're definitely able and the fact that they're not trying now only spells out a future of continued lack of effort. And that makes me sad. One day they'll probably just say "bah je suis nul avec anglais" or "I've just never been good at learning languages." Bullshit. You just turned yourself off to the idea out of fear of messing up.

And because this amused me a lot and hasn't been posted yet...:
Student [rifling through glossary at the back of her English book]: Miss, are you too' 'all?
Me [mightily confused]: too tall? How tall am I? [Gestures height]
Student: Uhhhh non non non uhhhh are you uhhh TAOWN ALL
Me [goes over to glossary, sees what student is pointing at] AHAHAHA
Student was pointing at mairie = town hall, trying to ask me if I was mariée = married.

Nope, I am neither town hall nor married.

Gros bisous,

MCJ

Mary, the American who likes Breton culture!

An article about me appeared in the Lorient edition of Ouest-France. You can see in the picture me with the rest of my class (but not the teacher... he got cropped out?). Breton is going well. I'm understanding more but am nowhere near producing anything on my own, granted there have only been four classes so far with two weeks off in the middle.

I love my Breton class a lot.

Also, I'm getting really good at bisous now. Y'all would be proud.

Bisous,

MCJ, l'Américaine qui aime la culture bretonne

Toussaint

Toussaint is November 1st every year (similar origins as Halloween <-- All Hallows' Eve, All Hallows <-- All Saints, All Saints = Toussaint). In France, it is a jour férié (no school, no work) where you pay respect to all the saints including those unrecognized. From what I saw it manifests itself in the visiting of loved ones' final resting spots and the laying of fresh flowers.

A vendor selling Toussaint flowers right outside the cemetary, for those who forget.

Walking up to the cemetary, it was a lovely autumn afternoon.

A view of one of the Lorient cemetaries.

French cemetaries are decidedly different from the ones I've seen in America. Generally each of the tombs that you see here is for an entire family, ideally generations of the same family. And, because they've had to be doing this much longer than Americans have, final resting quarters are somewhat more cramped. It was depressing to see signs up saying that the rent for a lot hadn't been paid and that one should address their queries to the townhall in order to avoid the loss of the spot. I'm not sure what then happens to the tomb/people within.

On la Flore

This past weekend, there was a music festival in Lorient, Les Indisciplinées. Three of the concerts were free, so being not exactly rolling in da cash, the language assistants decided to check out one of the free concerts, the last one. This last one was at one of the submarine bases built during WWII by the Germans. It's possible to get tours/go to museums there so we decided to get some culture and history before the concert. We decided on a visit to the submarine La Flore, the only one open that day (and happily the cheapest).

I was so impressed by this museum. It was artfully done and appropriately poignant. In the museum you learned in words what it was like to go on missions on a submarine (generally lasting 30 days) and then you actually went onto the submarine, La Flore, and could get a notion of what it felt like -- highly claustrophobic.

In the museum, with really cool screens. You can see that the one on the right has just flipped up so that you can see the map projected onto the far wall.

La Flore

The experience did not make me desire to work on a submarine, but it did give me a lot of respect for those who do. Sounds about right.

Happily, there was a lovely sunset.

Pictures from Bordeaux

So early morning the first Monday of the Toussaint break, I left for lunch in Paris. Regrettably, in the one tiny stretch of the walk between chez moi and the bus stop, I did not take out my flashlight. It was at this point that I tripped on... something? Probably just my own feet. In any case, I skinned my knee (and ripped the jeans that should have been protecting me) and sprained my foot and possibly ankle. I didn't reallyyy notice this last part until I got off the bus. But being me I decided to push on (and I'm glad I did). In Paris, I had lunch with one of my all time favorite professors at a really lovely place (after literally hobbling across the street from the train station to the monoprix to pick up something to wrap my foot/ankle with).

After this, I had to decide whether to hobble on to Bordeaux or to take the next train back to Lorient. It seemed like a shame not to go to Bordeaux so on I went! I passed the train ride with a pleasant enough grandfather who explained all the different agricultures seen on the way. By asking for the name of hay bales in French I think I might have given him the impression that they don't exist in the US. Whoops. He lives in a Paris suburb now, but was raised in the Bordeaux region where he still keeps a house. And, for Toussaint, he was taking some of his grandkids to said house. I got to meet them too. Very cute. Less cute was some of the xenophobic statements that were peppered in when discussing immigration. Even more so due to the fact we were sharing the cabin with two people who were pretty clearly immigrants who spoke French. Whoops. They just continued on with their conversation and I tried to change the subject... but it came up a lot.

And then, Bordeaux. Ah, Bordeaux with three exceptionally wonderful fellow English assistants (hello! if you find your way here :) ). They were incredibly understanding of my need for less speed and more hobbling and sitting. I appreciated that immensely. Like, for reals, y'all were the best. Also, we got Thai food for dinner that was actually legit. What's not to love about that?

So my time in Bordeaux was very lovely, if a little drizzly. It didn't transform me into a connaisseuse of wine, but ehhh, I enjoyed what I had:

At a wine museum, interesting stuff. It was followed by a tasting (dégustation) that was slightly less than impressive. On the other hand, we accidentally made the anglophone worker there speak to us in French the whole time.... It was a little awkard on both sides.

Impressive wine barrel

!

Hello, welcome to Bordeaux, look at our impressive array of wine. Next stop, Bordrunk. (I kid, I kid, even though some of us have very low tolerances.)

The Hôtel de Ville, note the rain

Bordeaux at night, a really lovely contrast between sky and shopping. I bet they do gorgeous things with Christmas lights too.

Bisous (more to come, I promise, Dr. LesMis)

MCJ

I have no idea

Today, I was working on lessons at the collège when one of the teachers came up to me. You need to go see l'intendance right now! There's a man coming to look at your heater. Oh... okay? I haven't tried to use it yet so I have no idea if there's something wrong with it or why this man is coming.... It's kind of like when someone came to put in a telephone line and then it was cut because I really don't need a fixed line.... Bizarre bizarre bizarre.
So I meet the guy and we go to chez moi. It turns out I do not have a heater, I have four. For my one room apartment. I have no idea. It's not like we're in a super cold place... it's supposed to rarely go below freezing. So from best I could understand (not because of the French but because no one really seemed to know), I'm getting a new heater so I don't use the water-based heaters as that would be using water from my neighbors' and I'd be adding to their bill. And then the electric heaters are apparently in crap places where they wouldn't help me at all... so I'm getting a fifth. For my one room. Five heaters. I have no idea.

Good stuff: http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving
Also, looking at Thanksgiving food when hungry is a terrible idea.... So hungry now.

I have Breton class tonight for the first time in a few weeks... wish me good luck, I haven't been studying and there's going to be "la presse" there tonight.

In which I ramble... a lot

I forgot to say a lot of things in this video... but I managed to fill up over ten minutes anyway. Sorry not sorry. I'm alive and slowly making a few French amis. It has become time where I need to stop acting like a newb in front of the actual teachers.

Classroom things:
- Currently preparing a lesson on Thanksgiving for the 6èmes (the littlests at the collège)
- Had a semi successful failure at teaching family words to one of the primaire classes. In class, it didn't seem like they were getting what I was teaching at all... but then they remembered everything today! I was amazed!.. and very, very happy. *
- Learned another baller Hello/What's your name song. I'm so cool.
- May have been exposed to a French form of pig latin.... the girl asked me if I spoke, what sounded to me like, Javanese. Uh... non. I am the English assistant. Then she started going off in something that her friend could understand. They looked pretty typically French, hence my doubts.

The Bordeaux pics will (or won't) be posted eventually. It was raining most of the time so they're not quite as jolie as I'd like.

I am now a card carrying member of the Leclerc loyalty family. It's like having a Kroger plus card only I'm not sure when the savings start to kick in.... Ah la France.

Massive bisous,

MCJ