So I haven't gotten any better at blogging, but that just means I've been busy enjoying myself (and lesson planning) in Rouen! Right? :) Not that I don't have a ridiculous amount of free time, or anything. 


A couple of weekends ago, my friends and I went to the France vs USA friendly soccer match. The energy was high and we had a great time, especially watching silly non-French speakers drink expensive non-alcoholic beer (the stadium is alcohol-free) and think they're drunk. Nice try! It was a bit sad to see my fellow Americans lose the game, though. I've never seen so many French flags waving at one time as when that goal was scored!

 After the game, I met up with my friend Christina and her boyfriend Arnaud and some of their friends for a night out in Paris! I met Christina in 2009 while studying abroad, and she is currently living in Paris - so great to see her! 


The six of us went out to a club as part of her birthday celebration, and stayed out until almost 5 dancing and sipping champagne. It was a great time and I was in great company. Later this month Christina is going to visit Rouen, and I can't wait to show her all the charms of our smaller city :)

The morning after the club (more like afternoon after, as we got to bed around 6am) Christina and I enjoyed an amazingly clear, gorgeous day in Paris and headed to l'Institut du Monde Arabe. It is a combined museum/bookstore/café with tons of information on the Arab world, as you might have guessed, and beautiful artifacts. The view from the rooftop was amazing. It's one of my new favorite spots in Paris, although we were forbidden from ordering hummus on the terrace's restaurant, so hummus-combined-with-beautiful-view-lovers, beware!

The hostess of said restaurant informed us we could sit on the outside patio if we only ordered drinks, but that we must sit inside if we wanted to eat anything. What's more, we must order more than just a hummus platter if we wanted to eat there. What was really confusing is that there were plenty of people with drinks and appetizers on the patio...hmm. We were directed inside to a small café, devoid of any view, where we could enjoy our hummus in peace. Bummer!


That's one interesting thing about dining out in France ; you do not have the right, necessarily, to order whatever you want. There is no going to a restaurant and ordering just an appetizer, regardless of time of day, and there is no splitting meals. You go out to restaurants to eat proper meals. If you want to snack, go buy a pain au chocolat, one of the few "socially acceptable" foods one may eat while standing/walking in the street, and then only at certain times of the day: early morning and 4pm-ish (the hour of the "gouter", or afternoon snack).  The French see eating as a social, shared activity, and mealtimes are rather formal. No eating in cars, no apples when you're feeling a bit hungry. Of course, you can do whatever you want, it's just a matter of whether you like people staring at you while you do it. 

Clockwise from left: Marissa, Alastair, Liz and Maureen

 Ok enough of that rant! I love Rouen more every day, and really feel that it's the perfect size city. It doesn't hurt that I have an amazing group of friends! I can't say enough how lucky I am to have found such down-to-earth, funny and kind people in this program. We gathered in a park yesterday to have a snack, drink some wine, play some cards, and take advantage of what might be one of the last really nice fall days until winter. It was such a perfect day, simple yet so fun. 


We're currently planning our Thanksgiving celebration this week, all taking responsibility for certain dishes. I am in charge of salad and the pumpkin pie! France does not have canned pumpkin (a travesty, as I am a bit of a canned-pumpkin addict from October through December), so I am using an actual pumpkin this year! I am so excited for this culinary adventure :) haha. I'll have to report back on how it goes!

Not a bad view, right? :)

Teaching has been going quite well, for the most part. Sometimes, however, I have this thought that I have virtually NO training to be a teacher, yet here I am trying to teach squiggly 7-year-olds a foreign language. Am I actually going to make an impression? Also, why am I in charge of this class?!? Once I get into the flow of things, however, I enjoy my classes a lot. 


I often feel as if my head is bursting with ideas for possible lesson plans, and I sometimes have trouble actually concretely getting my work done. I just spend hours googling this and that, perusing teaching websites, and suddenly it's 11pm and I have no lesson done. I always have been a procrastinator! It also doesn't help that I've started watching True Blood (an HBO series about vampires...all of the fanatic facebook statuses intrigued me so!) and that that show is an hour long, and sometimes I just can't help but sneak in an episode between lesson planning sessions. I'm only human! (...or am I?! muahahaha)

I am beginning to feel like a parent posting 8903
pictures of her child. Rouen is just so CUTE!

In other exciting news, Marissa, Maureen, Liz and I are going to BERLIN over Christmas break, and will be there during Christmas!!!!! I mentally jump for joy whenever I think about it, imagining the incredible Christmas markets all over Europe, and specifically in Berlin, that will soon be lining the streets. We'll be taking a (looooong) bus from Paris to Berlin, and staying at a hostel for 5 nights, returning to Paris in time for New Years at the Eiffel Tower. 


What is my life?


Also, even MORE exciting news, My darling cousin Allie will be joining us for New Years :-D. I think that ringing in the New Year in Paris is a sign of a great 2012. 


It's time for me to get to lesson planning now, so I have time the rest of the week to focus on Thanksgiving. It's not as easy to plan and make a massive meal when you have to work late on Thanksgiving and again early the next day! Maybe France should think about adopting the holiday ;) I'm sure they'd agree to another day off. 


I'll let you know how that goes. 

This is what I did while waiting for my car to be fixed for 3.5 hours today...

The information comes in irresistible tidbits for this program.

I applied in October 2010.  I found out in early April 2011 that I had been accepted. Then, I waited about two weeks for an email detailing my next steps, which turned out to be filling out some important paperwork, getting passport photos taken, and sending copies of my birth certificate and passport to Paris so I can be properly assigned to a school – with a 10-day notice to have it all in the mail! How very French of them ;)

A couple of weeks after this I emailed the woman in charge, Carolyn, to ask whether I would be teaching elementary school (école primaire), or école secondaire (which encompasses middle school and high school). Everybody in the TAPIF (Teaching Assistantship Program in France) Facebook group seemed to know what age they’d be teaching, so I couldn’t resist asking. I was not sure I had any preference and thought it best not to develop a preference when I could get assigned to any of the three levels.

Carolyn emailed me back about a week and a half later - I can only imagine how many emails she gets every day - saying that my contract was for 7 months in école primaire. I am really happy about this! As I said, I did not have a preference in the matter, but I think I secretly hoped that I’d be assigned to elementary school.  Young kids can be unruly and severely lacking in attention span, but I think the indifference of older students might bother me more.

Plus, high school students go on strike a lot.

(source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/demo-d19.shtml)

So the wait continues! I will find out between late June and (dread) late August where exactly in Rouen I will be teaching. It could be a more urban area and close to a train station (read: easy access to Paris J) or somewhere in the middle of nowhere! Until then I cannot make living arrangements in Rouen, nor can I get a visa, which requires proof of residence. I love planning and making careful decisions so this is a bit difficult for me, but I’ll consider it part of the adventure!

Before I applied to this program, I had never seriously considered becoming a teacher. I had thought about it only as a possible answer to that nagging, “what am I going to do with my life?” question running through the minds of most recent college graduates. I think this will be a great way to figure out if teaching would actually be something I would like to do. I feel like I might enjoy being a college French professor, but I’m not sure yet.

One thing that keeps me considering the latter career is a conversation I had with Mr. Bondurand, who was my European Cinema professor during my semester in Paris.  He was a brilliant man and fluent in many languages. After the interview portion of my final exam, which lasted 30 minutes instead of 15 because I blabber when I’m nervous, he said, “You know, you could be a French Professor”.  I don’t remember the context exactly but his words still stick with me. I regarded his opinion highly and those words had a huge impact on me. He saw (or heard) something in me that I did not, and I am so grateful for his confidence.

There he is, in the white shirt. Salut Mr. Bondurand!

For now I am stalking the TAPIF message boards and reading posts by past assistants, which has become somewhat of a new hobby.

Maybe the word “addiction” is more appropriate here?

The posts have information and first-hand experiences in dealing with every possible aspect of packing, travel, preparation, paperwork, teaching, French life, bureaucracy, etc… You can see how it’s easy to get caught up in reading about it all!

I have also been watching plenty of French films on my computer thanks to Netflix. I want to sound like a native by the time I arrive J It’s also a great excuse to watch lots of movies.

One thing that is certain about French citizens is that they love politics. I really, really do not love politics. I try to keep up on what is going on and read my share of news articles, but I lose interest so quickly. Especially since the online news sources I use (mainly www.newyorktimes.com and www.huffingtonpost.com) have great “Food” sections. I can’t help myself! I love what I love, and I love French and food, among other things.

That being said, I feel like I need to take a crash course in both French and American politics and brush up on current events before I leave for France. I can see it now, my  young students asking me, their American assistant, what I think of this or that new policy, and me having no clue what they are talking about.

It is not a far stretch. Eep. Let’s hope I can stay interested enough in some articles long enough to get a general idea of what’s going on in the world. I have, however, picked up no fewer than 6 novels relating to French life and culture, mostly written by Americans who have travelled in France. They are addicting! The list includes

“Lunch in Paris”, by Elizabeth Bard

“Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”, by Mireille Guiliano

“What French Women Know”, by Debra Ollivier

“A Moveable Feast”, by Ernest Hemmingway

“Sixty Million Frenchmen can’t be Wrong – Why We Love France but not the French”, by Jean-Benoit Nadeau

“A Year in Provence”, by Peter Mayle


Somebody stop me! Or at least deactivate my amazon.com account. 

That should keep me busy until I find out my placement! Or, at the rate I’m going, until I finish all those and then break down and read some political articles.

So I'm moving to France....

I can still barely beileve that those words are true! I found out in April that I was accepted to the TAPIF (Teaching Assistsantship Program in France) program, and I recently bought a ONE-WAY plane ticket to Paris that leaves on September 20. It's only one-way because I cannot buy a round trip with a return date past January 2012, and I'll be coming back in May 2012. We'll see if I buy a return ticket ;) hehe. Kidding!


I have been placed in Rouen, France, and my job will be helping a French teacher in an English class - so essentially, I will be an English teacher in an elementary school.

There I am!

Rouen is the capital city of Normandy. As you can see, Rouen itself is quite large. I do not find out where exactly in Rouen I will be teaching for another couple of months. The agony!


Here is a picture of the Rouen Cathedral, as painted by Monet:

I can't wait to explore another area of France, and hopefully more of Europe. I teach 12 hours per week, so I should have plenty of time (and hopefully money!) to travel!


Until then I am waiting patiently for my arrêté de nomination to tell me where my home will be from September 20, 2011 to May 2012!