Chapter 1 : My Landlady Stole My Pasta

I knew this past week was always going to be tough, but I'm not sure I could've anticipated the bizarre means by which that "toughness" would be manifested. Which is in an incredibly inarticulate way of saying:

This week was hard. Every aspect of this week was hard. France is hard. I'm a wimp.

I'm not raising any white flags; I'm not chucking in any towel. I just feel exhausted. And it's a Sunday afternoon.

My teaching started on Monday and has been an interesting source of joy and extreme anger/frustration/bile since. I have a nagging feeling that this dichotomy will continue to present itself until July. Awesome. I suppose all I can do is toughen up, learn, and listen to the cues of life at hand. Oh, and grow a back bone. That's on the To Do List as well.

For specificity and posterity:

I teach at three primary schools in the outskirts of Bordeaux. I work six hours a week at one school, and three hours at each of the others. This doesn't sound like much, and in in theory it isn't, but when transportation, lesson planning, and general French bureaucratic bullshit are accounted for, these twelve hours become heavy. Daunting, even. Because of the nature of educational systems here, the twelve hours break down into 45 minute class sessions, and because LV ("langues vivantes" - literally "living languages") classes happen twice a week, I get an hour and a half with each group of wee beasties I have. To do some more math, that works out to me having 8 separate groups of kids. Four classes at school numero uno, "JF," two classes at numero dos, "JM," and two at numero tres, "G."

How do you teach 6-10 year olds English? I'm still not sure. [If you have any ideas, please pass them my way.]

In between me yelling "QUIET KIDS!" and "SILENCE" and "Can you sit down?" and "SHHHH!" , a few things have occurred to me. For one, language is one of the few skills that seems somehow inherent. It's one of the most basic abilities we have, if not the most. Humans are naturally communicative, and this is intriguing. How is it that I can point to myself, and say "My name is..." and can point to a little squirt and ask "What's your name?" and that little squirt can understand my question, despite never having spoken English? It's incredible. And a mystery. Children lack a lot of things (like manners, a sense of politeness, inhibitions, tact etc), but they're completely intuitive. When I'm not in a foul mood, I'm awed by that. And jealous.