Happy July 4th everyone!
Today, I find myself all alone at home. But do not worry, I am sharing my patriotism with EVERYONE that passes by, and trust me there are a LOT of tourists. Today, I've turned up the woofers and the tweeters, turned them towards the port and consequently the bars, restaurants, cyclists, pedestrians, the boat traffic, the dogs, the cats and the pigeons have had the pleasure of
1. The Battly Hymn of the Republic
2. The Star Spangled Banner
3. The Marine Hymn
4. The Army Song
5. The Navy Song
6. Various Marine cadences
being blasted into their ears whether they like it or not, but OF COURSE they like it. Tonight my music will be replaced with music from the bar directly below me, so it's fair.
This is one day of the year where I'm putting all my political grievences aside and being simply proud of being an American!
Peace!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Dick and Jayne go to the farm.
It's looking like I might end up a farmer after all. I lived all that time in Iowa and I never caught the fever. I had to come to France to get my first tractor-driving experience under my belt. I'm at my in-law's farm house in the country and Laurent has to help out with the corn. This is something he's done many times, but this year, there's a special new twist. His Dad bought the life-size version of the plastic excavator he played with when he was little! You can consider it the ultamate poney.
Laurent has had the joy of digging a ditch with the back hoe attachment for a couple days now. Unfortunately, like all new toys, the shine wears off and what's left is a lot of work to do. But he did let me take the controls for a little bit and I moved some dirt around like when I was in the sand at the play ground. Pretty fun, but it takes some major coordination for all the articulations the machine has and I hadn't mastered it before it was time to hand the controls back over to Laurent . Maybe next time.
The boys just got back from the field, time to go eat some roast pork. Yummy!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Spring is here. Translation: TOURIST SEASON!
Unless you've been living in a cave (you can come out now) or possibly in a winter-generation machine (why??), you've noticed the warm weather creeping back into our daily lives. So as you dream of seeing Paris in springtime, the Parisians start the mass exodus of their city to go visit 'Provence.' Provence (with the accent on the vence) is where EVERYONE who doesn't live in Paris is from. My particular corner of 'provence' is well liked for its sandy beaches, big surf waves, sprawling forests, and relatively quaint cities. The apartments in my building, as well as the streets, the stores and the beaches, are filling up with vacationers . Everything is starting to cost more, too: the ice cream parlor, the grocery store, the gas station, etc all inflate their prices to make our affluent visitors feel right at home.
At school, the kids are getting anxious for summer and who can blame them? They live in a region that was made for summer fun. I must find a way to convert their unharnessed energy into constructive participation in English class!!!
The arrival of spring is also a reminder that my teaching contract is almost up. This means I have to start looking for next year's visa solution, which I'm hoping will not be too difficult to find. Maybe the public schools will be able to do something for me, or perhaps one of the various private language schools? OR, maybe the family I babysit for will be able to convince the French authorities I deserve the right to live and work on their land. We'll see.
As I look across the port, I see the street teeming with bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, roller bladers -- you name it! It's starting to make me ask myself what I'm doing inside.
Off I go to take full advantage of this blessed spring!
At school, the kids are getting anxious for summer and who can blame them? They live in a region that was made for summer fun. I must find a way to convert their unharnessed energy into constructive participation in English class!!!
The arrival of spring is also a reminder that my teaching contract is almost up. This means I have to start looking for next year's visa solution, which I'm hoping will not be too difficult to find. Maybe the public schools will be able to do something for me, or perhaps one of the various private language schools? OR, maybe the family I babysit for will be able to convince the French authorities I deserve the right to live and work on their land. We'll see.
As I look across the port, I see the street teeming with bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, roller bladers -- you name it! It's starting to make me ask myself what I'm doing inside.
Off I go to take full advantage of this blessed spring!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Progress
Well, hello again! It's been a while since I've last posted. Sometimes I wonder why it's so hard to do something so simple, but I musn't beat myself up about it, only make an effort to do better from now on!
This winter has been a good one. With the children I teach, I feel like I'm making progress with many of them! In my fifth grade class, I have a mix of both the biggest challenges and the most rewarding successes! In this class, there is a boy who arrived in the beginning of the school year from Eastern Europe not speaking one word of French who now manages to make full sentances in both English and French! There is also a boy who is actively trying to get suspended so he can go home and play with his baby brother. You can imagine the sort of problems he can cause. However, in this same class, there is a group of girls who are constantly asking me for more work to do, homework, further expansion on my lessons, you name it, they can't get enough English! One of these girls lives in the orphanage and typically fails all of her subjects, so her teachers are just shocked when they see her getting nearly perfect scores on her work in English. I must say this makes me proud and motivated to do a good job for the ones who want to learn.
Despite the many positive aspects of this job, I do get frustrated because I know a lot of the parents don't back the teachers at the school and their kids know it. And sometimes I lose my temper. I told one kid that his mother should be ashamed of him. That's probably not good psychology.....but he did grab a pencil out of his classmate's hand and throw it in the garbage without provocation, and when I insisted that he fetch the pencil and apologize, he said, 'Sorry I threw your f***ing pencil in garbage.' His mother would be ashamed!!!!! (I hope.) Whew, deep breaths. Moving on.
In previous posts I have lamented about my failed snowboarding attempts where I spend most of my time recovering from my previous tumble. However, with a little perseverance, I have managed to descend entire blue slopes without falling once! As it turns out, snowboarding can actually be fun! I don't last very long; at the end of the morning I'm pooped whereas the others are just getting started, but I'm happy to know that I can at least hold my own for a couple of hours.
I JUST got my visa finalized, so now I can start looking for odd jobs to supplement my little teaching job. I brushed up my resume in French and English, and let me tell you, if you think resumes are hard in English, just try it out in a second language. Yikes! And I've yet to find out if it's any good or not. I'll probably end up working with tutoring companies that would hire me out to help kids in English. Hopefully these will be older kids. Frankly, the little ones are tiring and it's appealing to get back to more advanced grammar points than telling time or listing colors.
We are currently on our two week winter break and last week I spent babysitting three little boys. This week is much calmer and I find myself wishing there were more people around to help take advantage of the beautiful weather we're having this first week in March! I hope you are enjoying your winters and and taking the time to appreciate the people around you!
Much love!
This winter has been a good one. With the children I teach, I feel like I'm making progress with many of them! In my fifth grade class, I have a mix of both the biggest challenges and the most rewarding successes! In this class, there is a boy who arrived in the beginning of the school year from Eastern Europe not speaking one word of French who now manages to make full sentances in both English and French! There is also a boy who is actively trying to get suspended so he can go home and play with his baby brother. You can imagine the sort of problems he can cause. However, in this same class, there is a group of girls who are constantly asking me for more work to do, homework, further expansion on my lessons, you name it, they can't get enough English! One of these girls lives in the orphanage and typically fails all of her subjects, so her teachers are just shocked when they see her getting nearly perfect scores on her work in English. I must say this makes me proud and motivated to do a good job for the ones who want to learn.
Despite the many positive aspects of this job, I do get frustrated because I know a lot of the parents don't back the teachers at the school and their kids know it. And sometimes I lose my temper. I told one kid that his mother should be ashamed of him. That's probably not good psychology.....but he did grab a pencil out of his classmate's hand and throw it in the garbage without provocation, and when I insisted that he fetch the pencil and apologize, he said, 'Sorry I threw your f***ing pencil in garbage.' His mother would be ashamed!!!!! (I hope.) Whew, deep breaths. Moving on.
In previous posts I have lamented about my failed snowboarding attempts where I spend most of my time recovering from my previous tumble. However, with a little perseverance, I have managed to descend entire blue slopes without falling once! As it turns out, snowboarding can actually be fun! I don't last very long; at the end of the morning I'm pooped whereas the others are just getting started, but I'm happy to know that I can at least hold my own for a couple of hours.
I JUST got my visa finalized, so now I can start looking for odd jobs to supplement my little teaching job. I brushed up my resume in French and English, and let me tell you, if you think resumes are hard in English, just try it out in a second language. Yikes! And I've yet to find out if it's any good or not. I'll probably end up working with tutoring companies that would hire me out to help kids in English. Hopefully these will be older kids. Frankly, the little ones are tiring and it's appealing to get back to more advanced grammar points than telling time or listing colors.
We are currently on our two week winter break and last week I spent babysitting three little boys. This week is much calmer and I find myself wishing there were more people around to help take advantage of the beautiful weather we're having this first week in March! I hope you are enjoying your winters and and taking the time to appreciate the people around you!
Much love!
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