More Tales from France to Animate Your Leisure

School has begun! Thank God Almighty! I believe my tactic--that of holding hostile the waiting room in front of my director's office--good luck, and the dogged persistence of a number of teachers at the IUP all came together in procuring my happily-ever-after. School started last Wednesday, the same day that Jonathan Carbin was born 22 years ago. :) Lucky day for me.

Class was excellent! I welcomed the group to "Autoformation," which is the term for the English software class, and then explained that the computers hadn't arrived and that we would be doing "un cours de la conversation" until they do arrive. That being said, I began our conversation class with a warm and chalorous "be on time and come to class" speech, plus a pity-pulling note about the difficulty of speaking in a foreign language in front of others and if I can do it, so you can you, and you better respect each other or I will judge as lesser people kind of a pep talk. They got my point. Class number one still required me moving someone to the front row from the back because of too much talking. Oh, times haven't changed since 5th grade.

My schedule works like this: I have 6 groups of Licence 3 students. Those are students in their third and final year of their License, which is kind of the equivalent of an undergrad degree. I have 4 groups of first-year Masters students, and 3 groups of second-year Masters students (the top-dogs at the IUP.) That makes 13 one-hour classes where I see everybody once a week. Each class has about 30 kids in it, and I'm at odds trying to have a conversation with 30 people at a time! The killer point is that the students are all at different levels of English, but I will admit that the License 3 kids seemed to be at a more consistent level than the Masters students. I've heard that the English programs in elementary and secondary schools has improved in recent years, and that could be the reason that the younger kids are more consistently good at English than the older students. Or perhaps it's senioritis among the ranks of the oldest kids at school... who knows. :)

After my introduction, I explained the exercise for the day. I drew an outline of the continental United States on the white board and introduced myself in English, "Hi, my name is Sarah, and a state that starts with "s" is South Dakota. Where is South Dakota?' We went around the room that way, introducing everyone with their first name and a state that starts with the same letter. I know now that there are no states that start with E, X, or Q, but I managed okay with the rest of the first names. I would interrupt on occasion to talk about the regions, labeling the Deep South, the Northwest, the East and West Coasts, the Great Lakes Region, the Southwest, the Northeast, and the Midwest in scrawling marker. I gave up drawing the shapes of the state the second half of the week when my futile attempts to place and squeeze in the east coast states into a tiny space turned into a disaster zone and an embarrassing jigsaw puzzle of "oh crap, there's no room for Pennsylvania" moments.

I managed to squeeze in a ton of random information first of all, to inform my students, but probably mostly because I was excited that I actually knew that much about the United States. Of course, it might have been unfair of me to quiz them on why the pilgrims came to America, but I thought it was vital they realized the country's origins. And maybe I should've stopped my soliloquy on the Alamo, but I couldn't resist, and man, it was fun to see the shock in their eyes when I detailed the route Jon and I drove this summer and all of the hours in between cities. The best moment was maybe when we settled down to talk about French versus American values. I did it just to get a feel of stereotypes--mine for what is important to the French, and theirs as to what they thought was important to Americans. My question, "So what do you think Americans value?" had an interesting response. "Guns!" "Oil." "Imperialism." "Hamburgers!" For the sake of cultural understanding and my personal patriotism, I felt called to help these kids get a better idea about what most of America is really about.

Our lists ended up something like this (not in any particular order of importance):

French Top 5:

1. Liberty
2. Food (I convinced them to change this to a high standard of living--the good life in other words)
3. Fraternity/Solidarity (exemplified by the strikes going on every week)
4. Equality
5. Family

American Top 5:

1. Liberty
2. Privacy
3. Family
4. Individualism
5. Competition

These were not all-inclusive of course, but it was interesting to see what they thought about it.

Week two was speed-dating which was an instant success, making up for my disappointment when the second-year Master students were baffled by my OU Daily editorials. Teaching is definitely a learning process.

In other news, I think I am officially immune to French bureaucracy. I have been confused, shocked, and shuffled around enough to have the equivalent to a vaccine against this disease of inefficiency that seems to run rampant here. That was harsh. I love the French, don't get me wrong, but when I left one office to go to another--all in the aim to finalize my visa process--I didn't even blink when the secretary said the Office of Immigration was closed for the day. It being only noon, I sighed and said I would come back tomorrow. "Ooooh," she responded, "tomorrow isn't good either because it's the strike. And Wednesday, you know, of course, we're closed for the whole day. So Thursday?" And I responded, "I will be there in the morning," I said, mentally reserving 8:45-12:15 in my head for the task.

This morning, I was hit by a car that took a turn too quickly as I crossed the street. I knew the street was dangerous already because when the pedestrian light goes green, cars only have a "caution pedestrian" light instead of a stop sign. Leads to things like this morning when my right knee was rudely interrupted mid-step by a middle-aged woman driving a sedan and her son in a Scream mask in the back seat. My knee is sore. I already pictured myself years from now in a doctor's office saying, "It all started when this lady ran into me in France," holding my bum knee in one hand and a crutch in the other. As I limped away from the scene cursing to myself, I imagined this lady looking at her car five years from now with a mechanic saying, "...and this dent is from where I ran into that American that one day, and this one was from a tree, and...". Life is funny box of chocolates. I just got a coconut when I wanted cherry I think.

Speaking of chocolate, my cakes are out of the oven. Tomorrow is my American friend Kasie's birthday and I made her a dozen mini-cakes with a recipe from my French host mom. I'm wishing I had used my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook because they turned out a little dry. Hopefully no one will mind :).

Some good things that are happening/have happened:

1. Dad is coming into Paris this weekend!! I can't wait to see him. I leave Friday after my classes to take the train to Paris, and the two of us will be traveling back into town on Sunday evening. Pray for safe travels and for no strikes!

2. I volunteered with the Red Cross in a hospital last week. We pushed a cart with about 40 books on it around the hospital and offered to rent them out to patients who were here for a long stay. I met some very sick people, but I also met some very joyful ones who inspired me to keep things in perspective.

3. Some running, and a lot of dancing. My ballet classes are going well and are a great thing to look forward to in the evening.

4. I've had a lot of fun hanging out with the American, British and Irish exchange students here. We've done dinners together, outings together (like a Tunisian restaurant one night, and a French one the next...) and baked cookies one afternoon. We're planning a Thanksgiving at my place and I have two ideas for dinner parties to do in the meantime (a vegan meal and then a Tex-Mex one for the Great Britainers.)

5. Rotary is continuing to help me get settled here in Clermont. Margarethe lent me a layaway bed for when Dad comes this week. Also, I've been invited to speak about Oklahoma for a nearby Rotary club in a couple weeks. Looking forward to it.

Things are going great. If all goes as planned, I should be 100% done in the beginning of March. I have to remember of course that my director could change his mind, or the students could go on strike for two months, or who knows, the school could change my contract. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the possibility of being home a little earlier than expected.

Love you all and talk to you soon!