Odds and Ends

I've officially been given clearance from the Inspection office in Nice and both my schools to leave after next week. And I'm only probably going to work on Monday and Tuesday.

Then my time working for the French government is up.

It's funny because now that I'm about to leave and have friends visitng, I've been doing all the fun things I should have been doing this entire time here. And I'm really enjoying myself! Maybe it's because I know that I have a finite number of days remaining in this country.

Either way, I've done a lot of administrative crap like filing for an address change (22 € ridiculous!), finishing my CAF document, etc. Basically I'll be keeping my bank account open so that way the CAF can be putting in half of the rent payments that I've made since October all the way through June. Then supposedly I can close the account online, but I'll need to figure that out for sure.

As for today, all afternoon classes were cancelled so the teachers could sit and argue on the new government's plan of action for proposed programs during the 2008-2009 academic year. Supposedly the ministry of education has already signed off on these plans, but all schools are banding together to oppose them.

And as usual, I sat on the side while everyone argued.

But supposedly the new plan includes over ten hours a week of French grammar lessons and the regularly allocated time to foreign languages. That leaves less than five hours of the week to dedicate to geography, math, art, sports, science and maybe one or two other subjects. And don't forget about the two 15-minute recreational breaks they get before and after lunch.

So where does the rest of the time in the day go?

France will be reinstating daily "moral" lessons for the first time since all the teachers were children.

Je suis extremement fatiguée!!

Me back in Nice again! And it's been renovated since two years ago.

As much fun as it's been in Nice, I'm glad to be back in Antibes.

For the past two days I've been waking up before 6 a.m. and hopping one of the first TER trains into Nice. Like I said last time, the exciting part is being able to see the sun rise over the deep blue ocean. Absolutely gorgeous.

And while the orientations have been extremely helpful, they're also painstakingly long. We had three-hour morning séances, a one-hour lunch break, and then three more hours of the grind. At the end of the day, if this makes any sense, we were all too tired to go home knowing that we'd eat and promptly fall asleep at 7 p.m. Plus, it's quite hard to be in Nice and not exploit the heck out of the cafés and shopping districts.

Since the trains leave earlier than the first busses of the day, I've been walking to the stations, walking from the station in Nice to the IUFM building in the hills of Cimiez where we had our meetings, walking back down the hills to Vieux Nice, walking back to the train station, and then from the station in Antibes, walking back up more hills to my apartment. I've made some necessary purchases (i.e., a sponge for the shower and nail clippers!) in addition to some really exciting ones -- lychee and green apple sorbet in Old Nice. Pretty much what I lived off the entire 2005 summer that I spent in Nice.

Oh yeah, I've yet to figure this out, but each morning as I headed towards the train station at around 7 a.m., the local pub is JAM-PACKED with people! At first I figured maybe in the morning it doubles as a café, but this morning they were definitely tapping a keg. What the F?? I think I might go one morning just to say I have.

But back to the meetings in Nice -- we've been learning all kinds of websites, games, and strategies to use in the classrooms and I'm quite excited because I've semi-prepared a bunch of lessons already. The only problem is that during four three-hour sessions, most of what our presenters had to say was a ridiculous amount of overlap. C'est la vie, I suppose. But this was the first time I understood 100 percent of what was being said in French! And it was 16-hours' worth!! If only I can replicate that in my own speaking skills...

It's a little strange though because I am finally understanding just how good I have it at every stage of my life. In high school, the 8 to 3 daily schedule was absolutely tiring and after-school sports practices and homework drained all of my remaining energy. Then in college I learned the beauty of scheduling classes (only two or three hours a day!) around my sleeping/eating/working preferences. However, finals week was always hell. And now that I've experienced two different aspects of the working world, journalism and education, it's so insanely nice to go home at the end of the day and not have anything to worry about like homework and studying. Yes, some preparation is necessary, but it's totally convenient and very low-stress.

Sitting in classes all day really drained all my energy. Thank God those days are behind me :-)

However, I am very heavily entertaining the idea of going back for a Master's or even a Ph.D. when I return state-side. So far, I'm really enjoying education and I might want to do it at the research/university level.

Surprise Mom and Dad!

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

Today, I am not.

...Well, in French at least.

An update on the strikes, apparently this happens EVERY Thursday. Luckily, I called the elementary school I was supposed to observe today and someone went completely out of his way to pick me up and drive me to Juan-les-Pins. Totally nice of him. And then, he drove all of the assistants to our respective schools for the day.

Today I learned... Geography, spelling, fractions, etc. And it was kind of difficult to understand the children, but that's going to be part of my learning experience I suppose. Actually I learned how far behind the U.S. is in education! At seven years, the French are already learning geometry and the Pythagoran Theorem... we didn't get that until seventh GRADE (Age 13ish).

For now, I think I have to wait for the directrice to finish her class and then find someone who can drive me back home. Then I'm going to try to open up a bank account -- without the proper documents.

Doing everything so last minute like this is completely un-me!!! And it's totally freaking me out. Oh and, one last thing, I'll be working nearly 22 hours and can pay to eat at the schools' cafeterias. Today we had a really good salad, followed by this breaded white fish with lemon zest and then instead of mashed potatoes, mashed broccoli. It was actually quite good, along with the ice cream ;-) I'm still trying to figure out these French keyboards!