Bonne année!

Happy new year, dear friends!

Despite my being sick for roughly a quarter of it, 2011 has been a wonderful year. I feel so lucky to be in France right now in my little town. At face value, it might seem that being placed in my town would, well, suck. In fact, one of my French professors told her (French) friend about my being placed in a small Breton town and the friend's reaction was "oh... well that's too bad."

It might seem like this would be an unfortunate placement for someone my age, however, the reality is that being here has exposed me to some wonderful opportunities that would have been harder to come by. Namely, I mean being welcomed so warmly into the Breton culture of my little town. I feel so lucky and I am so lucky. I've made great friends within that association and with other assistants. I will be sad to leave these people in May, but I know that it won't be the last time I see any of them.

This time last year, I was sitting in front of my computer going "shit... I actually REALLY really need to start writing this French essay for TAPIF." and "FUCK! What regions SHOULD I list??? And in what order?" and also "Really, MCJ? Really? You left this to the last minute. Really?" Luckily, it worked out and I got my second choice for academies (the Rennes academy, aka BRITTANY where the best students are).

Since I last wrote, the parents and I have visited: Bayeux, the Normandy beaches, the American cemetary, Mont Saint-Michel, Cancale (where we didn't eat oysters. oops), St Malo, Carnac (holy beeswax! them's a lot of megaliths), Guidel Plage/Larmor-Plage/everything in between, Lorient and, of course, Quéven. We've been putting some good miles on our rental car.

I hope the next year brings you as much joy as 2011 has brought me.

Bloavezh mad!

Much love,

MCJ

Les Vacances so far

As we prepare to leave Strasbourg in the morning, I thought I'd check in and say how wonderful it has been. Strasbourg is truly lovely and the apartment we're staying in is absolutely delightful. I would post pictures except it is in fact someone's home and that seems a bit too much into their privacy. We had tea with the owners and I have to say they are people I'd love to know better.

Strasbourg is situated on the Rhine, across the river from Germany, in the Alsace region. It's a great location to explore Alsace and the Lorraine. My parents and I had the chance to day trip to Nancy, Colmar, Kehl (Germany, the city across the river) and Basel (Switzerland). Strasbourg itself is host to several Christmas market and many, many, many tourists during the holiday season.

Apparently I got only one picture of these markets and the market is wayyy in the background. Here it is:

My favorite part of the Strasbourg leg (even with all the fantasticness of Strasbourg) has been being in an apartment with my parents and an oven.

We made candy cane cookies:

soup:

a tarte aux pommes:

and a fantastic Christmas chicken (not pictured, though the soup was made with its leftovers).

As someone who really likes cooking, it's been a joy. And it's been a joy to be with my parents and to share with them some of what I've seen and some of what little I know. It's been even more of a joy to discover new things with them, like Nancy, Colmar and Basel. All three of us speak some French and a little German so our forays into Deutsch-speaking zones have been funny misadventures. Sometimes those forays were just to the restaurant downstairs as Strasbourg still has quite a lot of German influence (and visitors).

Being in Strasbourg has made me think some more about the future. I'm still working out what I want to do, so stay tuned. :)

In the meantime, here is a picture from each of the places we visited.

Nancy: Croq n Jazz. If you go to Nancy, go there. It is apparently at 4 Rue Lafayette.

Colmar

Basel/Bâle, Switzerland: Outside the Art Museum

Kehl, Germany

Big bisous and huge hugs,

MCJ

Paris with the Parents

The parents arrived safely in Paris.

Forgetting how hard jetlag can be, I ran them around Paris to go to the Musée Branly. I've been wanting to go there for the past four years. The museum was really cool, as hoped (and freee for me), but rather dark inside. Darkness + places to sit + jetlag = sleeping dad. We rushed through Oceania and the Americas and to lunch at Les Cigales. Parents fading fast, we headed back to the hotel for a nap.

Post-nap, we headed to Théâtre de la Huchette to see Ionesco's first two plays. The nap got them through the first play admirably, but the second play proved a little more taxing, until the characters started yelling. It's the 55th year of these plays' runs in this particular theater and my third time seeing it. Mary the maid and the fireman have been the same actors all three times, I'm fairly certain.

Today, we head to Strasbourg.

Much love,

MCJ

VACANCES pt deux

Larmor Plage, the day after a storm

Courtesy of my sixièmes, snowmen

Monster Snowman

Bonsoir my lovely friends and family (except for my parents, who should be boarding their plane to France right about now)!

I'm sorry about my incredible lack of posts since the sickness. I'm all better now! Yay! I'd been putting off posting as I worked through an existential crisis.

I'm also very sorry to the personal friends that will get the next news from this rather than "in person." Also to said friends, LET'S SKYPE THIS WEEK!!! I will have access to wifi this week at all hours. Wonderful!

So, big news, I've decided not to apply to grad school in the US for next fall. I'm not 100% on my plans for next year aside from my hope that it be in France, Austria or Germany next year. I'm looking into grad school in France next year. French grad school is cheaper than American grad school, by which I mean the schools I've looked at are less than a thousand euros a year INCLUDING paying for social security to the state (which shouldn't really count). For the summer, I'll be back in the US. I'm looking into working with disabled children over the summer (or doing something similar that would relate to a future speech language pathology career). In the meantime, I'm researching grad programs here and prepping for the DALF exam.

I could write really profound things about this, but I'm le tired and I'll be getting up earlyesque to meet my parents at the airport!

Highlights from the last week of classes:

- Singing "You are my sunshine" for the Breton Association's end of the year soirée

- Getting a lovely card from one of my sixième classes.

- Going to an amazing dinner at one of the Spanish assistants' with her lovely, fun friends.

- Going to Lorient's Christmas fair (the rides were only 2Euros, what, like, half the price of the same rides at the Texas state fair/Houston rodeo)

- Giving my Monday primary kids American cookies. "Miam miam miam miam miam miam miam miam."

Much love,

MCJ

Being sick

Bonjour à tous!

I've been mildly sick for the last couple weeks, until last Thursday when my throat started to hurt. And then this weekend when I started to cough. I should prooooobably go to the doctor, but I have a special case of laziness about these things (see: last May when I had bronchitis for three weeks before going to the doctor or this summer when I had mono for two weeks before seeing the doctor because of the all-body hives that broke out). Being sick, however, has not prevented me from doing things. Except it's gotten me out of a lot of bisous (AH NON NON NON NON ATTENDS! JE SUIS MALADE). (I apologise to S whom I bisoued despite the sickness.)

This weekend was very fun, rather relaxing (all good given my sickness' turn for the very present). Friday, S and I went over to Port Louis where we discovered that entrance to the citadelle was free for us. On the way there, we accidentally took one boat to and from the other side of the river because I thought it made two stops, the second at Port Louis (which is what it does on Sundays, the other time I'd been there). We did not walk into the water and we had to run after our bus because the busses switched numbers at the roundabout where we were waiting. The museums at Port Louis turned out to be rather fabulous. In fact, I have been incredibly impressed by all the Lorient-area museums I've been to. They are very well done. We also had lunch at a really lovely crêperie, where the lady gave us maps of the island and we had shrimp curry crêpes. Delicious.

Saturday, S, D and A came over to Quéven to visit me! My first visitors! Hahaha. Unfortunately, it was raining out which pretty much cancelled out everything I had planned for them. Instead, we bought tea and cookies at my Leclerc and watched music videos in my little room. Afterward, S, A and I went to the movies to see L'art d'aimer. There was some miscommunication, however, and two of us ended up with tickets to Les adoptés. We did not realise this until later, after the movie. We ended up watching Les adoptés and it was so, so good. It's definitely up there as one of my favorite movies I've seen so far.

Sunday, S, A and I went to Le Gandhi, a delicious albeit expensive authentic Indian restaurant. Samosas nom nom nom. I tried a hot sauce which irritated my throat and caused a coughing fit that led to tears. It was apparently very attractive.

Monday was the second stage for the elementary school assistants in Morbihan. I brought along a box of tissues and used them up during the all day stage. I also sneezed and coughed a lot. Luckily, the stage leaders are very very sweet. It was a lot of fun and gave me a lot of ideas for what else to do with my elem kids. Though I was sad to miss out on a day of working with my elem kids by doing this, I was very happy with what I learned.

Today, I'm still sick. Womp. As soon as I walked into the school, the lady at the welcome desk (who was talking with others at the time) said "Mais tu as l'air malade!" Me: Oh yeah, I'm a little sick, but it's not a big deal. The people she was talking with turned out and stared at me. Fun times. Then I went off and ad-libbed a lesson on Christmas with some 6èmes. Luckily, I had a nice long break between that and my second class of the day, so I went back and slept some more, apparently making myself look far less sick. Yay! In fact, at the end of my second class a student (a 4eme) came up and said I was very beautiful. Brown noser. I know I look like shit right now, but merci quand même.

Coming up today: more sleep and Breton class, where I will continue to not bisou people (I was sick enough last week not to, now I apparently look sick enough that no one will want to).

Friendly, germ-free smiles,

MCJ