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PS I know I barely write in this thing but I haven't had a comment in like forever! Will give homemade shortbread for comments (well, if I'm within a 5 minute walk of you will give shortbread, shortbread doesn't travel well!)

Noel en France

Just found an extra brownie in my cupboard that I didn't know I had- score!!

Well, I'm writing this a day before I head back to Glasgow, as I can't pack my case yet- the femme de menage is cleaning my room. The past month has been pretty eventful- went for a walk in Orgon, went to Nice, Chris came to visit, saw the festival of lights in Lyon, and had various fetes at peoples houses, plus plenty of flat drama. I also know almost all the words and actions now to a German song about flying like a plane (und ich flieg, flieg, flieg wie ein flieger!), have found out that two of the schools I've been teaching at aren't in my contract and don't have insurance to have me there, I've learnt how to (well watched Stefanie) make mulled wine, and have found out what the 13 deserts of Provence are, have learned French for Christmas tree (Sapin, lit. pine tree,- not 'Arbre de Noel' as I was originally saying!), elf (lutin), snowman (bon homme de neige, makes sense), and reindeer (reine).

As well as the many good experiences there have been, there's also been some, well, not necessarily bad, as much as, bizarre (love that that word works in English as well as French, probably my most overused word here!). For example, one Tuesday night me and S and another friend, N, decided to go out and try some salsa dancing at some free classes advertised in an Avignon club. The 'free' part is disputable, had to book our coats in at 2euros, and when we went in the place was practically empty, the class was in full swing and everyone there had clearly been coming for some time and knew all the rather complicated steps. At one point there was a break and we asked the instructor whether there was any classes for beginners, only to be told 'no, these sessions aren't really for beginners', which is not the impression we got from the posters pasted all around town. To add to this though, there were people at the back of the room watching us and apparently taking photos as well. When we left, one guy came out and told us we were being watched for an anthropology project for uni- don't people need your permission before they do that kind of thing? Anyway, we left and headed to another bar which does salsa classes, even though you have to pay, to check it out. At the bar N met someone she knew and was chatting with him, and we were standing there for maybe 10 minutes at most when the proprietor of the place came right up to our faces and said 'what are you having to drink ladies?' I wasn't sure how long we were staying so didn't reply, but he just kept asking, and eventually we said we weren't sure yet, nothing at the moment. To which he shouted right in S's face in French that we had to leave. I couldn't really believe it until he said in English "Go Away!". It was the rudest thing ever and I still can't believe he treated his customers that way. Anyway me and S left and vowed never to go back again. If you live in Avignon I'd advise avoiding the bar with the initials B C, the proprietor is very rude!!

As mentioned above we've also had numerious flat dramas generally involving our landlady (nicknamed LoLo) and one or other of us very nice tenants. The current, biggest flat goss is that one of my colocs has acquired a kitten, and it states in the terms of us being here that we've not to have pets for 'hygeine reasons', which is hypocritical as LoLo has her daughters dog Sam over for days on end every other week (Sam barks maniacally every time he sees you, and once scared me half to death by barking at me when I came out of my room into the corridor... he has been a small source of flat drama himself) but nobody is quite sure what will happen when she finds out about the cat. I for one am really happy to have a moggy in the house, and I even got to babysit him in my room last night :D. Makes me even more excited to see my own kitties when I get home tomorrow- can't wait!!

Well there's loads more wee stories to tell that'll have to wait for another time- I really have to pack! But my New Years Resolution will be to write in my blog more often (along with a resolution to actually think a bit about what I'm going to do about getting a job after the diploma... so hard to be motivated as it seems so far away!).

Update

Super vite update!

So I am not very good at keeping a blog, that much has been established. Been here for two months now! Time has flown in, but at the same time feels like aaages ago that I first arrived with my parents and a massive amount of stress about finding a house and having to teach for the first time. Now I have an appartment with great flatmates (including our newest edition) and standing up in front of the class is no longer a big worry- lessons can even be a lot of fun! Nevertheless, there will always be challenges, like today when I was dropped off a little late for the bus home and missed it, meaning I had to wait two hours standing in a dark cold street in the middle of nowhere for the next bus- after the first hour I was contemplating hitchiking, but really I would never do that unless the only other option was to lie down and sleep in the street! So basically it's not been an easy day. In fact the kids at school today were great, and I'm really impressed by my CM2 in particular- I'm excited that I'm starting to get them to speak an actual sentence as opposed to just a word. Hurrah! Also looking forward to starting Christmas lessons. Only 3 weeks of school left so I might start Christmas next week!

Besides school, I've been really busy. Yesterday I went on a walk with some other assistants to Orgon, and walked 13km which I think is pretty impressive, although somewhat painful in my flimsy trainers. Parents are sending me walking boots and a rucksack in Chris's case for when he comes on Saturday, so next time there's a walk I'll be prepared. Then last night went with Stefanie, Claire and Claire's friend Coralie to see "micmacs à tire-larigot", a film by the same director who did Amelie Poulain, and it was really good. Didn't understand a lot of the speech but the gestures and actions in the film meant that mostly I got the plot.

I've also done some travelling- last weekend I was in Nice visiting my aunt and family. Had a really nice time- we also went to the movies- saw the Petit Nicholas, a really cute and funny film, and that time I did understand most of what was said as it was spoken by primary school children. We also went to an archaeological roman ruin site and the Chagal museum (I got in free- being under 25 and showing ID in France can do wonders in museums, works at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris too), and had a nice pub dinner. Look forward to visiting again at some point next year!

Thursday night before I went to Nice we had a wee soiree at the flat, using my bedroom as the salon since the kitchen really isn't big enough. It was a really nice relaxed calm night, with good food (none of it made by me- my contribution to the evening was to tidy my room!) and good company.

There's been quite a lot of other dinners and parties at people's houses, and it makes me really glad to be in Avignon where there's so many lovely people. There's another one tomorrow night, and then on Saturday Chris will be here :D! Can't wait to show him my little town (compared to Glasgow, Avignon is not exactly a city) it's the first time he'll have been here. Hopefully I'll remember to keep this updated and write up how everything went after the weekend!

Chocolat

A quick post to keep up the momentum of blogging before heading to Paris tomorrow- today my flatmate and I headed to the Parc Des Expositons (for those in Glasgow, a bit like the SECC) for a sort of fair thing which was all about one particular topic- chocolate! Heaven, right? It actually cost 5 euros to get in (or 4 euros if you haven't lost the voucher your flatmate gave you, like I did...) which is quite expensive considering it was just a bunch of stalls selling various chocolate based products and something called a 'show' which was in fact an hour long cookery demonstration. It was pretty good in terms of chocolate samples though, and I got to drink hot chocolate made from a real lump of chocolate on a stick. Oh and there was a sample of the 'chocolate tofu' cookies made in the cookery demo which was admittedly devine. I also have the answer to the question, 'can one get sick of eating chocolate at 11.30 in the morning and it's sadly yes.

We also got free entry to the homes exhibition which would have been great if I'd been looking to replace my stained glass or my jacuzzi...

Nevertheless an interesting morning!

Teaching

Ok so my internet's kind of slow and it cuts out every two hours but it's free so I can't really complain. I've tried updating my blog a couple of times with pictures but the pictures always take aaaages and the internet cuts out before it's done. So here's a post with no pictures, and rather than trying to update about everything that's happened in the last 4 weeks (which is quite a lot!) I'll just rush up to date to the last two weeks and talk about what's probably the most interesting thing, the teaching.

I'm a 9 month assistant in primary schools and that means I'm effectively the English teacher. I have three schools in three little villages dotted around the Luberon, a Parc Naturel in the midst of Provencal France. As mentioned before I live in Avignon, so I have to get three different buses for each of my schools, and for two of my schools I actually have to get picked up from the bus stop and driven for 10 mins or so to the school itself. I've only been doing it for two weeks and it's okay really. I do spend a lot of time on the buses, probably around 5 hours per week, but the great thing is that I only have to work Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and Monday is really just a half day. Yup, I'm a slacker. It is hard work teaching the kids though, and I do spend a lot of time preparing- I get kids of every age and level, from the three year old babies who still have dummies to the 10 year olds getting set for college (a.k.a secondary school) next year.

For those unfamiliar with the French school system, it starts at 2 or 3 in what's called the Ecole Maternelle, which is really akin to nursery school or kindergarten. Here's the info off of wiki:

"The ages are divided into Grande section (GS: 5 year olds), Moyenne section (MS: 4 year olds), Petite section (PS: 3 year olds) and Toute petite section (TPS: 2 year olds). It is not comp2ulsory, yet almost 100% of children aged 3 to 5 attend."

I only teach maternelle kids in one school where there is just PS, MS and GS... but let me tell you, teaching 3 year olds is hard enough! They don't even really know French yet and I'm meant to give them English?! Even the 5 year olds were a tough crowd- I tried my self invented 'hello what's your name?' song which worked pretty well with the 6-7 year olds, but with the 5 year olds I just get blank stares. It's hard enough to elicit their name when I ask them in French! On the other hand when I showed the 3 year olds a picture of a dog one of them did tell me in French that his dog had just died... leaving me pretty speechless.

Anyway I only spend 1 hour a week with maternelle, so the other 11ish hours of my time is spent with those in ecole elementaire. In EE there are 5 levels:

CP: 6 year olds
CE1: 7 year olds
CE2: 8 year olds
CM1: 9 year olds
CM2: 10 year olds

At my schools the classes are mostly mixed, so for example I get CP/CE1 or CE1/CE2 or CE2/CM1... at all schools there is a separate CM2 class. There are 5 classes in each school, and in each school I get between 30 minutes and an hour per week with each class. As you can imagine, 30 minutes a week of English is not very much, but then again an hour is really too long for the kids to concentrate on English. Thankfully at the schools the teachers are all lovely and the directors especially are really helpful. In each school the teachers stay in the class while I teach, excepting some teachers who leave the class some of the time. The kids are all really cute, but they do (especially the older ones) tend to talk a lot and it's really difficult to control them if the teacher isn't there. I have some ideas for dealing with this in the future but so far I've just been overwhelmed with the planning and executing of lesson plans and haven't had time for a long-term discipline strategy.

This week my lessons were on halloween, and involved a mixture of different activities dependant on the level. For the younger kids I had a song about witches and a picture of a skeleton which we used for parts of the body, and after we sang 'head, shoulders, knees and toes'. For the middles, I also taught a few halloween words like 'witch, bat, cat' and then did halloween charades, followed by the skeleton, 'head shoulders knees and toes', then 'simon says' for the parts of the body. For the oldest, we did all the halloween words, the charades game, then some of them got a halloween wordsearch, then we used the skeleton for body parts, revised 'head shoulders knees and toes', then sang 'the hokey cokey', then for some of them I had a dinosaur skeleton worksheet to label, and for those who finished the worksheets early I also had a colouring in sheet which was to colour in the different body parts of halloween creatures (i.e. colour the spider's legs red!). For the first two schools I tried to mark their worksheets as I went along but it was really difficult to do and the pupils whose sheet I wasn't marking got rowdy, so in my third school I asked if I could take them home to mark and they said sure. So I did my first proper bit of marking and put stickers on the ones who got it all correct... I anticipate a bit of a nightmare when I give them back and those who got all but one correct see that they didn't get a sticker, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Also I noticed there are two or three in each class who are waaay behind the others and I'm trying to work out strategies to get them involved without making them feel victimised. Drawing a blank on that one at the moment, let me know if you have any ideas!

Well that's all for just now, it's the Vacances de Toussaint and no more school for nearly two weeks! I'm off to Paris on Sunday and back to Scotland next Thursday so it'll probably be pretty busy. Hope everyone else has a fun holiday!

How Apt!

Ok, quick post to catch up some more then I reaaalllly need to sleep.

So, Tuesday night I went to O' Neills, the Irish Pub on Rue de la Republique, to meet some other assistants. I had been feeling slightly ill (sore throat, cough, blocked nose etc) since Sunday but by the Tuesday I was really feeling very run down, especially with all that running about flathunting, so I didn't stay for long. I did however stay long enough to find my roomate- an Austrian assistant who is tres tres sympa! She mentioned that she was still looking for somewhere and, knowing a room was still free at the house I'd be staying at, I gave her the address and phone number of the place (or so I thought, haha). After about an hour at O'Neills I left to find my parents who were having a drink at a nearby cafe and to go back to the appartment, because I really wasn't feeling fab. Then had an early night, as we had a plan for an early rise to catch the bus to Gordes (the village where one of my schools is) the next day.

Wednesday we got up and ready nice and early and caught the bus to Cavaillon, from whence to go to Gordes. On the bus my aunt called me to say she'd had a call from someone asking about renting a room... it took me a while to realise that I had somehow written my aunt's phone number instead of that of the proprietaire of the house! Had minor freak out and then phoned Stephanie just as I was getting off the bus, to explain my faux pas... only to notice that she was already standing at Cavaillon Gare Routiere right in front of me! Tres bizarre. Anyway she had managed to get an appointment for the room as I had actually written the correct number underneath so it was all cool... but after I said bye to Stephanie we found out that we couldn't go to Gordes because you have to phone to book the bus on a Wednesday... quoi?! So we had to do something else and the eventual choice was Apt, just cause it's easy to get to from Cavaillon.

There's not much to say about our day trip to Apt, but here's some photos to illustrate it:

Concise summaries aren't really my thing...

Well I've been here two weeks now and haven't gotten past blogging about like the first 4 days so I really need to speed this thing up! So Monday was when I visited my school and Tuesday was mega mad stressful day where I finally found a place to live, huzzah. We visited a studio in the morning, and were almost going to just take it as the stress of not having somewhere was starting to freak me out, but really I had to admit to myself that I did not want to live alone in a tiny studio barely furnished and with no guarantee of internet. So, after that we went to the Espace Des Jeunes and I really started phoning people and organising flat visits. I really hate making phone calls in French, it's so much harder to communicate over the phone than face to face, but somehow I managed to drum up two rendez-vous at colocations, which I could add to the one that I had arranged (or rather my aunt arranged for me!) via appartager.com. So with three rendez vous to do that day (besides the studio) I was feeling a bit better. We went for a coffee, then waited for like an hour at the Phone House trying to buy a phone with them taking sooooo loooong about it that in the end we had to leave without one. The first flat rendez vous was on Rue De Vieux Sextier which was a really beautiful street, very central with lots of pretty boutiques. The flat itself was really nice, and would be shared with two girls who were both assistants. Me, parents and aunt were all really keen but unfortunately there was also another girl at the rendez vous who wanted it and she ended up getting it, leavng us all feeling really deflated.

The next rendez vous was in a tiny side street, something du Pont Martin I think. The street looked a bit dodgy and we just weren't really feeling it after seeing the last flat. In the end the guy who was meant to show us the flat never turned up, so it was on to our third and final rendez vous of the day. This was in a totally different location, near to the train and bus station but 'extra muros' (lit. 'outside the walls', as there are ramparts surrounding 'central Avignon' and then greater Avignon is outside the ramparts.) It's still only 10 minutes walk to the centre though. We found the place without much bother even though I wasn't that sure of the name and just knew the name of the larger street and that it was 'the first little street on the left'. We found the street and it was in fact very close to the station, and the house and garden looked huge! After pressing the buzzer we were greeted by the Madame of the house, and I got my first look at one of the little tortoises in the garden!

The arrangement concerning the house is that it is split into different appartments, 4 in all- one for Madame herself, one upstairs two bedroom appartment, one downstairs two bedroom appartment and one downstairs one bedroom appartment. There is a strict rule that only one person stays in each room, and no boys (although in fact the downstairs single person appartment is lived in by a man!). I was shown the two rooms of the currently unoccupied upstairs appartment- one was a smallish single room and the other a larger double, both featuring a bed, a tv, a wardrobe, a desk and a chair, the larger also has a bookcase. There is a shared bathroom (very small) and kitchen (fair size, with oven, hob, micro, frigo, freezer, bin, worktops, cupboards, plates, cutlery etc and table and chairs) for the two people in those two bedrooms. After discussing the particulars- was it possible to get CAF? (Yes) Could friends visiting from Scotland stay? (Yes) Was the rent all inclusive? (Yes) Could I pay in cash? (Yes) Could I get internet? (Probably) I decided to take it!

So this is my pad:
There is a short story about how I got my roomate but I'll save that for next time!

Ah tishoo ah tishoo we all fall down...

Well, hello world! I am writing this blog after a whirlwind week of settling in to my new life in France, during which time my access to the internet has been rare and whenever I did get it I spent most of the time sending emails in French, which still does not come quickly for me! Lots has happened of course since I last blogged, including a lot of stress but overall a pretty good first week.

I got the plane from Marseille with my Mum and Dad (lucky me to have my parents for the first week to help me settle in, their help was invaluable!) and then we caught the train from Vitrolles to Avignon. During the train journey a couple of young girls asked us if we spoke English, and tried out a bit of it on us- when they asked if I spoke French, I just said ‘un peu’- I found it really difficult then to work up the confidence to speak at all in French, a situation which is only just starting to change. (Last time I was asked if I spoke French was at the bank, where the teller said “Vous parlez bien francais?” And I replied “Peut-etre pas bien, mais j’essaie!”). Once we were at the station, we had the first argument of what would be many- can’t even remember what it was about now though, think it was something to do with food. Then we were collected by the lovely Veronique, who was also a great help the first week. She is a primary school teacher in Avignon, and gave me lots of tips to find accommodation and even let me use her PC for the internet one night! The appartment we stayed in was lovely, and I got to meet Veronique’s two cats which managed to still my homesickness for my own two petit chatons for a bit- here’s some photos of them, I was told their names but can’t remember. In typical cat fashion, they always seemed to hide or look away when I brought the camera out!

So the first day was spent just doing a bit of shopping at Leclerc supermarché and then taking a walk into the centre ville, and really not taking it all in properly at all. So much of my first days here were spent feeling too stressed and overwhelmed to really look at anything. After having a drink in a café, I went to a phonebooth to phone a few numbers I had and arrange some viewings of flats, and ended up idiotically phoning one guy, getting all the details and setting up a meeting, then two minutes later phoning another guy who happened to be the friend of the first guy and who had already rented his place, but who gave me all his friend’s details- meaning that I arranged the same visit twice! It took me ages on the phone and my Mum got mad at me, so there was fight number two. I phoned Chris for 10 minutes, then we went back to the appartment to sleep. Things got better on the Sunday, when ma tante Donna arrived from Nice to sort us all out!! We picked her up at the station around 11am, took her back to drop off her bags, had some lunch, then it was all go again because we had a rendez-vous for a studio appartment. The studio was near the station and it was in a nice house but we weren't sure about it because the bedroom was quite small and dark and I would have no colocs. In the end a Senegalese student took it instead. After that we went to the tourist info and asked where were the best places to find out about appartments- because it was a Sunday, not a lot was open, but the tourist info guy said there were annonces up at a place called Cinema Utopia, so off we went to find it. I got some photos of the Palais des Papes on the way.

We got some numbers and had a drink at the cinema, and that was pretty much that day over, but we made plans to go to Cavaillon and Taillades the next day, Monday, to visit my school. I stopped at a café with internet access to email my directeur and let him know.

Monday was a really tough day. We left for Cavaillon quite early, and when we arrived it was market day so really busy. After having a look at the town we concluded that it might be better for me to live there, to be close to my schools. It seemed quite big, with some shops and bars, a train station, a bus station, two supermarkets and a cinema. We went to the tourist info to ask about Taillades and got excited when we were told there was a bus… only to feel dejected on discovering that it barely ran at all, with no buses at all that day. There was no other option. We had to walk.

By the time we stopped to drink a café and eat a croissant (at Loch Ness café no less) and then checked for location ads at Super-U, it was midday, and we had a long walk ahead of us. It was really hot, and we were all in pretty unsuitable shoes for the hour-long trek along the road side with about 10cm of pavement (where there was any at all) and cars rushing by. We finally arrived in Taillades and found the school like an hour and a half later, and met my headteacher and some of the pupils and found out that I will be driven to my schools from Cavaillon, so I decided to live in Avignon, I also discovered my other schools are in petit villages called Lagne and Gordes.

Anyway I know this is a totally lame way to end a blog post but I'm really tired and a bit ill :( and I have to get up early for the Stage d'Accueil tomorrow at Marseille, so I'm going to bed. I'll post again soon with more longwinded banter from France!!

There's something amiss...

Well it's a while since I wrote last, and as there is only 2 days to go (silent scream!) I may not have time to write. This week has been pretty busy. On Saturday, there was an open doors day in Glasgow, so me, my mum and two of my aunts went to the Willow Tea Rooms, the Scottish Heritage Centre and the Art School, then we went to see where my mum and her family grew up before her house was destroyed in the storms of '66, and mum and the aunties had fun reminiscing. Best part of the day for me was going into the pub right next to where my mum's house was and seeing the Stone of Destiny!! Was going to take a pic to show to my French pupils but thought that the concept would be way to hard to explain and if I just showed them the pic they'd be like 'oh, wow, a rock :P'.

Sunday was a day of tidying up and messing about, catching up on X-Factor and watching the second part of Strictly. Gutted that I will miss all of my reality TV in France- hopefully there are plenty of good things on the French box that I can watch huddled up on the sofa on cold winter evenings.

Monday was my penultimate day of work, and then in the evening had a goodbye get together with my uni buds. I'm really going to miss you guys! I've started reading 'The Complete Merde' already (one of my presents from Jennifer) and it's really cool, I had heard of some of the phrases already and had no idea what they meant. Think that will be my 'on-the-plane' reading :).

Tuesday was my last day of work, which was really sad too. It was soo nice, they got me a big bunch of flowers, a huge box of M&S chocs and a pink beret style hat which I already love. They have asked me to send them a pic of me in the beret with a baguette, a stripy t-shirt, some onions and a bike :P. After work Chris came to meet me and I bought a new digital camera, which brings the amount of cameras I'm taking with me up to 3- my Flip (for vids), my webcam (for Skype) and now this one. I think I will have to carry them all in my pockets as my cases are absolutely crammed!

Yesterday was a morning jog with my friend from school, then an emergency appointment at the dentist due to my toothache. He told me I need a filling in one of my lower teeth but that my upper teeth (the ones I thought were hurting) are fine. I need to go get some special mouthwash from the chemist today. Also should refrain from tucking in too much to that big box of chocs.

Just two days to go now, and I feel it still hasn't really hit me. Chris is coming with me to the airport on Saturday- maybe when I'm leaving him behind and heading through the terminal gates that's when it'll really strike home. It's weird, as this week has been all about seeing the people I'll miss, but as it doesn't feel real yet I'm saying goodbye without really feeling like I'm going.

A final note, here's two little ladies I'll certainly miss, although they have no idea I'm going anywhere and certainly no idea what goodbye means.
Merrie is at the top there clinging on to a scarf and Pippin is at the bottom rolling about in her usual promiscuous style. These aren't the cutest pics of them, but they are pictures that show their characters and remind me about all the little things they do that I will miss!

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

I'm sorry I was 5 days late in saying Happy Birthday, but here's a belated birthday message for you, featuring a lolcat! Hope you had a really happy 22nd.... oops I mean 21st ;) birthday!!

Paperwork Overload

Eating: Champagne chocs... yum!
Listening to: You Don't Know Me (Ben Folds, Regina Spektor) love it :)

I am strangely happy today, despite the fact that I feel slightly crushed by an increasing mountain of paperwork. I won't bore you with the details of the various paperworks, but it seems every time I think I've sorted most of it, I find another 3 documents I need to sort out. Current minor crisis is that I didn't get my bank card. Apparently I forgot to tick a box on the application, and rather than just call me and ask or send it back to me, Nationwide decided to destroy it. That's right, they sent me a letter saying 'we have destroyed your application form'. I'm freaking out a little because even if I go in branch tomorrow, get a new application and send it off, is there realistically any chance of it being sorted out and sent back within a week? Because a week is all I have left from tomorrow, as I leave really early on Saturday 26th.

I'm excited and happy though cause my lovely tante from Nice is coming through to Avignon to help me get sorted for a couple of days. Not only will it be great to see her, but I think it will be such a help to have someone familiar with the French bureaucracy on my side! She has been phoning up trying to arrange appartment viewings for me but all the potential colocs want to wait til I'm in country, tant pis. At least I feel I am taking steps in the right direction.

I'm currently trying to clear out my student email because I know they shut it down at the end of September...

...Not much of a blog post as my boyfriend has come round so I want to spend as much time as possible with him before I go!

Not long now

Less than 2 weeks til France and I'm not sure if it's really hit me yet. I'm still waiting for my nationwide card to come through so I can actually spend any money in France without the insane charges I would get with my Bank of Scotland card... really should have phoned nationwide today but I'll do it on Wednesday if it's still not through. Other things I need to do are get some passport photos for my Carte 12-25 and get a letter of recommendation from my bank, but I just haven't been in the mood for paperwork these past few days. I also need to send off my paperwork to the University of Avignon as I'm hoping to do 3 hours a week of French there, but I just received an email from them and I'm not sure I understand it! Ah dear, at least this whole paperwork thing should eventually subside (fingers crossed!) after my first month or so in France. I'll be feeling much better once I've actually got accommodation anyway- people keep saying to relax but sadly I'm a worrying kind of person, especially as I've never lived away from home before.

But like I said, all I do on this blog is complain and I really should be over the moon- I'm going to France for 9 months! I have always wanted to do this, and while I never regretted not taking the opportunity while I was at university and doing Erasmus (I'd have had to have studied law in French and I'm still sure my language skills would not have been up to it) I'm really glad I can pick up the chance now and have an amazing time learning French and living the French lifestyle. It's also really great to be this close to France now after several months in limbo at the beginning of summer- it was aaaages before I found out if I was accepted to the programme or not, and I was considering being an au pair instead because it was taking so long to find out if I'd got in. Even once I knew I got in I had to wait to find out which academie- another couple of weeks- and then there was the waiting for the arrete, then there was the contacting my school and waiting for them to get back to me (they have now). All that waiting is over, and even though there's still all the paperwork and annoying organising to do, at least things are moving, at least I'm actually just 12 days away from life in Provence! I've been reading the guidebooks and it sounds like an amazing area. My school is actually part of the 'petit luberon', a sort of natural parkland with a few scattered villages across it which will be great for autumn/ spring walks and cycles, and hopefully I can live in Avignon and still have the city life with shops and restaurants. I can't wait to visit the Pont, and also the Palais des Papes, because I'm a bit of a geek and love history/ museums, and I can't wait to do some travelling around France. I'm also tres excited about going to Paris in October with my boyfriend, even though I'm practically forcing him to go as he hates flying, but I know in such a romantic city we'll have an amazing time. I was in Paris last summer and have already done the Eiffel Tower/ Arc de Triomphe/ Louvre/ Sacre Couer, but I wouldn't mind doing it all again (especially the Louvre, I only got to spend about 3 hours there last time which wasn't enough!) and I'd love to go to Versailles! And besides Paris I'm really keen on visiting Marseille, Aix, Montpellier, Grenoble and Lyon, as well as going to see my aunt in Nice and fingers crossed there will be enough time/ money during the 9 months to go to Italy, I am desperate to go to Venice! Scotland is technically in Europe but being on a little island is not really conducive to easy transport, so I'm looking forward to living on the continent as I think it will be much easier to travel around Europe from France.

Really what I need is a travelling buddy as I'm not too keen on train journeying and hostelling by myself, and I think besides getting a few days with him in Paris at Toussaint, my boyfriend will be working too much (in Scotland) to be able to go anywhere with me. So when I get to France I need to find a) accommodation and b) someone who's keen to travel! Maybe I'll even meet people who'd like to come visit Glasgow with me on one of my trips back. My lovely city is mocking me just now by being bright, sunny and warm when I have just checked the Avignon forecast for the days I arrive and it's cloudy and wet! Oh well, forecasts can be wrong...

Sorry this post has been rather a cathartic splurge, but it's good to be able to talk about it without boring my boyfriend/ parents to death! I had better go and do some more French though as I read about three pages of my book today and gave up and watched Jeremy Kyle so I think I still have a lot of work to do!

I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham!

I ordered a copy of Dr Seuss's 'Green Eggs and Ham' and it came through the mail today. I'd never read it before (shock, horror), so spent a childish 5 minutes reading it aloud to myself and pretending I already had my French primaire class in front of me. That makes 4 story books I have to take with me, plus numerous other teaching materials, (wallcharts, maps, stickers, games, cds of children's music etc) as I prefer to be overprepared rather than underprepared, not that I really have the space in my suitcase.

This'll have to be a brief post as I'm volunteering soon- feel like I could do with the next two and a half weeks off just to prepare for France, but since I only work/ volunteer for three days a week I really can't complain! I think next week will be my last week volunteering though.

My learning French goal is not improving rapidly- my days always seem too full to get any French done, yet I never seem to get anything else done either! Hopefully my French learning needn't be too much of a priority now though as I have decided to do French classes at the university of Avignon once I'm actually in France- they're specifically tailored for language assistants, and they're on Wednesday afternoons which, being primaire, I'm told I'll have off anyway. It's another 200e I can't afford just now though! My main worry at this moment is financial. My parents have been fantastic at helping me out, booking my flights, paying for my first weeks accommodation (they're even coming over for a week to help me settle in) but I'm still panicky that my current total 'France fund' is just £750! I get paid just before I go, but I'll still fall way short of the £1500 reccommended by the British Council. It'll either need to come out of my other savings (which I'm trying to keep for a post grad I plan to do after returning from France) or my parents said they'll help me out, but I always feel bad about that, or maybe I'll just not eat for a month :P. Even though there's just two and a half weeks to go, my current attitude is just to wait and see what happens, at least I have my post grad money to fall back on if needs must!

Whatever else happens though I must must must not buy any more stuff to teach with! For some reason I get a real kick out of buying stuff to show to my classes, but chances are I won't even use some of it, and I have way too much as it is in terms of suitcase weight!

Gosh, this has been rather a whiny post, next time I'll need to write some more in terms of what I'm actually looking forward to regarding the assistantship instead of constantly complaining! Anyway I'd better go get some lunch, maybe I should gain a few pounds in advance so that I've got plenty to lose in case my not eating for a month plan has to be enforced!

Three Weeks, Two Cases and a Panic Attack

I have decided today that I love lists. I may not always follow them, but making them makes me feel so much better.


Things I need to do before France:

1. Drastically Improve My French- since I'm no longer seeing my tutors, I have had a fantastic idea on how to improve my French, involving reading a book I bought at oxfam, and noting down all the vocabulary I don't know. OK, so it's not technically my idea as one of my French tutors suggested it, but since they aren't going to read this, I'm taking the credit. The trouble with the French section of the oxfam bookshop is that it doesn't really have any contemporary books in it. I have nothing against classic novels, I just think my French is not really ready for Molliere yet. In fact, I know it's not. The reason I know is that I found the most simple looking French book in Oxfam, bought it, and it has taken me a week to get through three pages. The book is in fact far more complex than you'd expect. It's called 'Claudine a L'ecole', and what I've gathered so far, it's about a girl called Claudine, and she's probably going to be at l'école at some point but I haven't got there yet. It started with Claudine complaining about her town, and then in an early plot twist it turned out that actually she liked it. I think Claudine's a bit of a weird one, as she has an odd passion for trees, and kept going on about the bushes and the grass and the lilies of the valley and how she wanted someone to bring her a shrubbery. That's as far as I've got so far- maybe the fourth page will yield more exciting plot developments yet.

My other cunning plan to improve my French is watching some french films with the subtitles off. Surprisingly I can gather quite a lot about the films, despite understanding around 0.5% of the dialogue, which puts my faith in my ability to read people's faces and actions, but not in my ability to understand French.

2. Pack- It's still three weeks away, but I need to try and get my entire life for 9 months into 25kg worth of luggage so I think it will take a bit of practice. My dad keeps saying '25kg? When I go on holiday I don't even use 10kg,' to which my reply is, I'm not going on holiday, I'm moving away FOREVER. Actually not forever, I'll be back in a month for a few days, and I'll be back for good by July, but it will probably seem like forever as I'll miss my family (cats included) and boyfriend so much.

3. Find accommodation- this is unlikely to happen before I go. I'm already a member of appartager.com, but for some reason all the people who want to live with me are middle aged men. They are probably smartly dressed, respectable, nice, charming middle aged men but nevertheless I'm rather keen to meet people closer to my own age group. In fact, I'm not sure I want to live with men at all. Chris wouldn't like it, and I think I'd feel safer staying with girls. So I've put 'Filles uniquement' on my appartager ad and I don't get any messages at all now :(


Nevertheless despite my impossible to fulfill list I am really looking forward to France, despite being also terrified and really sad to be so far away from my loved ones. But they can come visit me in beautiful provence and we'll guzzle olive oil, frolic in lavender fields and stuff ourselves with truffles... or something like that!