They're so tiny!

After my workout today, I went home to feed clean up after Mr. Woodstock (he's still getting the hang of this potty training thing, it's getting difficult since he almost was perfect at it earlier this week). On the way back to work, I drove by two schools in the one mile it takes me to get home. And both were letting out for the afternoon.

I couldn't help but think how tiny they all looked! I swear, the middle schoolers here look like six or seven year olds! Not sixth or seventh graders. And high school students, don't get me started on how young new drivers look.

I couldn't help but think how awesome it would be to go home at 2:15 every day. Bring a bagged lunch to class, hang out with your best friends and worry about nothing at all. Well, except how much you hate Mr. X and that "yard" lady who always yells at you.

But then I realized something. Middle school - well mine at least - was the point in which girls started calling each other bitches and sluts, boys start making sexual jokes and began using marijuana.

Which BLOWS my mind! How do people that tiny get into that mentality?!?! I realize I was slow in my maturation process (first drink and first kiss in college), but seriously?!?!?!

It's so weird to think about that when you frame it into such a perspective.

Why do we call it the "dead of winter"?

Do you ever hear the phrase, the dead of summer? No.

But things are looking up. Anyone who knows me understands that I detest daylight savings time. I hate getting into my car after work at 5 p.m. in pitch black. I hate feeling like it's midnight at 7:30 p.m. The shorter days suck. (Yeah, that's as eloquent as I'm going to get in my pouty-post.)

With January here, we've only got two and a half more months of winter. But the best part is that I can tell the days are stretching out a little bit longer as the weeks pass.

When I hopped into my vehicle this evening, it was 5:15 p.m. And there was still a bit of sunlight lingering on the horizon. I watched it sneak out of view. But the fact that I saw it happen is big. Spring is coming, am I too soon on this yet?

Fill 'er up

With gas prices what they are, I'm thinking about possibly saving up for a hybrid vehicle in the future.... very far future.

But luckily gas is sort of going down here. Despite this report done by the Contra Costa Times on the nation's highest gas price regions, Stockton has not actually hit anywhere near $5/gallon, let alone on the 4th of July.

When I was in Santa Barbara for the holiday, I remember seeing gas prices soar near the $4.70-80 mark, but Stockton's never really surpassed $4.40/gallon. To give you a good reference point, it's between $4.20-30 back at home in the Bay Area.

Stockton is anywhere between $4.00 and $4.30 for fuel, but yesterday I found an Arco in the back of the city charging $3.85/gallon. That's pretty manageable for me!

...Though I still would like a hybrid.

You gotta fight, for your right....

...to party?

Anyways, I feel like fighting's a pretty good theme to wrap up this week.

You already know that I had to fight for my friends' visit -- who just left, BIG BUMMER -- and I also had to fight for me and my personal space here in France.

However, as much as both made me very unnerved, uncomfortable, angry and stressed in the beginning, I honestly believe all is for the best now. Two more days of work and then I move back home.

But on a different level of "fighting," I literally saw three outrageous fights in the last 45 hours. Not even two full days.

Yesterday morning when I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off (to close up everything here) I heard obscene amounts of honking coming from the auto-route exit when I was walking on the street to the CAF building. Turns out some old man was driving like an A-hole or something -- come on this is France, don't expect much from the drivers -- when the guy behind him gets out of his car and starts slamming on the window. Even though it was entirely in French, he was telling the other guy off in a very, very foul way. Then it died down and he drove off. All that for cutting someone off.

Situation two happened this morning when we were on the way to Nice on the Promenade des Anglais. Half the road was blocked off and these guys on motorcycles boxed in a good three cars. Man #1 in the middle car gets out and forces his way through the motorcyclists. He then proceeds to open the door of the car belonging to Man #2 who was with his wife. Man #1 lunges for Man #2, intent on dragging him out of his car so he can kick the French out of him. Man #3 on motorcycle pries Man #1 off Man #2, while Man #4 in the car to the rear starts running towards the scene. Then our light turns green and we drive off.

And the third brawl occurred while we were sitting in the TGV, waiting for our train to take off. A big huge group started forming near our platform, because apparently some teenage girl jumped on this really old, senile looking woman. No idea what caused this rise in tension, but she was swearing, throwing fists and lunging after the old woman. Security came running to the scene and pulled her off, forcing her arms behind her back. Then the girl continued swearing at the security officer and spat in his direction. I don't know if it got on him. This causes the other security guard in the little cart to come running to his friend's aide, and then proceeds to viciously KICK the girl in question. That completely shocked Kat, Libby and me. I wish I could tell you how it ended, but again, our train pulled out of the Gare on its way East.

French people are really leaving a good taste in my mouth for my last week here.

Oh and don't forget: Clocks forward tonight for those of you who live here.

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.

More reasons why I like French people

This I don't get.

I'm on the bus like usual, in my gym clothes -- why am I the only person in this country who ever wears gym clothes?! -- when the following happened.

There were no more seats available, so I had to sit in the side-facing seats in the back. Instead of getting all car sick by watching the side-scenery, I turned my body towards the front of the bus and looked straight ahead. I noticed some woman in front of me, and I'll admit I'm frequently guilty of this, but I couldn't help but admire how well-dressed and fashionable she looked. It's not like I was rudely staring or anything like that, but you get the idea. At one point she turned back and looked right at me, like she knew I had been looking at the back of her head or something. However, when she snapped her head around, I was no longer looking at her. But because I was in the back, I was perpetually looking forward, beyond her and at the road. She kept turning back, why I'm not sure.

Then as she's getting off, she straightens out her clothes, stands up from her seat and looks back, right at me. I tried not to look at her, but kept staring straight ahead, minding my own business. Well this is kind of hard to ignore: she keeps looking at me and puts up the middle finger really aggressively with a crazed look on her face. And she held it there for a good minute.

I looked behind me to see if there was anyone outside she might have been gesturing to, but located no such person. And then the two Moroccan guys sitting in the seat adjacent to me, craned their necks to look over at me, in my direction, and started laughing silently.

Not sure why, but right then and there I felt extremely embarrassed, confused and offended. What the heck did I do to warrant this?! Well it took me the better part of the day to forget about it.

When the heck did I get so sensitive?!

And another note about French people: They have no shame whatsoever.

My roommate is having her boyfriend staying over for the week because he just started a new job in Antibes. Since he lives in Nice and doesn't have a car, it'd be kind of difficult for him to get to work on time. Her and I are actually getting along a little better again with him here because he's way more friendly and keeps her personable and accountable for all her messes. I kind of like living in a house of three for now. It's never felt too small for us.

Except for yesterday morning, when he walked in the kitchen in search of breakfast, still half asleep.

It would have been a normal morning scene, if he wasn't wearing his speedo-esque p.j.s showing off more than I'd ever like to see of what might possibly be the hairiest legs on Earth.

Love is in the air...

I guess it's fair to warn you all now. I may not be coming back to the United States at the end of the academic year.

After yesterday, it seems I have my pick of at least seven suitors and I'm pretty sure they all would agree to marry me so I could stay in the country legally.

Let's see how this day started, shall we?

When I went to my first CE2 class, the little boy who does the best in my class and walks with me to school some mornings came up to me at the end of the period and asked me with rather sad looking eyes, "Monica [they all think I make my name sound French because I'm an American living in France, so untrue!], your birthday hasn't passed yet, has it?"

Not really sure why he wanted to know such information, I responded with a smile, "Nope! You guys are lucky because France gives two weeks of vacation for my birthday; it's the start of the April vacation."

Then he looked really pleased, hid a little smirk and ran off to recess.

The nice thing about teaching is that I also get the recess. But I get both recess periods, so I essentially have 30 minute breaks throughout the day. Enter what I'll call Scenario No. 2.

While I was sitting in the teachers' room with the door open, I noticed the "sick bench" was full of giggling boys. I looked back to see what was so funny, but didn't recognize a single one of them. Going back to making my copies, I heard from around the corner, "'Ello Monique!" when it turned out one of my students was certainly in the doorway.

I looked back, waved and they all erupted in giggles a second time. Shaking my head and smiling to myself, I kept at my work. But during the next 10 minutes, they kept making excuses to come into the room or provoke me to enter the hallway where they were seated. Finally, it all culminated in my one student nudging his little friend, asking, "Sooo, Monique. What do you think about him?" pointing to the boy right next to him. Then I couldn't help but join in the infectious laughing, noticing that at least three of the boys were blushing and waiting for a response.

However, I didn't give them the satisfaction of hearing a response. I figure whatever I was going to say would have probably been illegal, because I can't refrain from making a good joke. But I kept it to myself.

And now for the third and final "romantic" part of my day.

When I went to my second CM1 class after lunch, the teacher greeted me hastily as soon as I walked in the room. "Don't start getting ready for class yet, we had a poetry unit this morning and two people would like to read poems they wrote about you."

Now I was the one blushing. Did all the students conspire today to flirt with their English teacher who's twice their age?!

Well, the poems were hysterical. They actually started to make me kind of nervous, ha. Either way, this is about the gist of what they said:

Monique. Elle est dynamique: Elle est tres énergique, mais jamais diabolique. J'aime comment elle est sympathique. Des fois, elle est vraiment acrobatique. Jamais alcoolique. Elle est super magnifique! Monique: elle est très très unique!

It's basically just a whole bunch of nice words that rhyme with my name. There was actually much more, but I can't really remember it all. Either way, it was pretty funny slash cute.

There you have it. The French really must be great seducers if they all do things like this from such a young age.

But what do I love?


Smoothies. And a few days ago I was trying to pass time and stay warm waiting for a friend in a bookstore. Wandering past the cookbook section, a smoothie recipe book caught my eye. And while I've seen my share of smoothie recipes -- I'm an addict, what can I say? -- nothing compares to the French ingredient lists! They're so creative and bizarre, so I'm going to try making one tomorrow.

It's kind of my twist on a recipe I saw in the bookstore, but the ingredients I have on-hand that will be going in are as follows:

-Vanilla soy milk
-Green tea
-Grapefruit (meat and juice)
-Pineapple yogurt
-Honey

Here's to hoping it's as good as it sounds!

I'm not M.I.A.

...I'm just tired, that's all.

I'm really trying to be enthusiastic about this teaching thing, but I just can't. I mean, I'm coming up with new, fun lessons for my classes every day but in the back of my head I keep mentally ticking off my teaching days as they slide along. No, in fact, I actually have a paper sheet that I made up at the beginning of the academic year with all the number of sessions I'd have in each class to get a general idea for how many classes I'd have to prepare and how much time I'm allowed to spend on each unit.

Well it's now evolved into a "how many days do I have left in class" plan. And I swear to God, if I never hear "If You're Happy and You Know It," again...

But apparently I'm not as bad as some of my teachers. I'm not sure why, but when I showed up to one of my CE2 classes today, the maîtresse frickin' snapped! When I asked her if it was o.k. to erase the board and begin the day's English lesson, she started screaming at the class, "It doesn't matter anyways because we never advance. We're always falling behind on every lesson because someone wants to go to the bathroom, you forget something, there's too much talking..."

And then I saw the red darts come shooting out of her eyes. This sparked a five-minute rant that took up some of my teaching time as she continued chastising the children, blaming their insolence. (If I can get my two cents' in here, I haven't noticed their behavior to be bad enough to warrant this mess, but what do I know, I'm just the American girl who doesn't understand French, right?)

Either way, when my lesson was over I was about to head out the door. I finished five minutes early because the coloring page I set aside for the class to do was thwarted by this angry teacher. She told them they weren't allowed to have a fun activity today because they didn't merit such a thing. Instead she asked me to do something else to take up the last five minutes, like study vocab. This was requested of me so she could run to the bathroom for longer than five minutes. I had to stay in with the class during their recess break and babysit, while she did whatever the heck it was she had to do.

Oh, and might I add that she was doing absolutely nothing during the rest of the 40 minutes of my lesson. Couldn't she have gone then?!

But, I want to end this little puzzled rant on a good note. Because, as much as you might believe to the contrary, I am not an angry person who hates living in France. I'm rather enjoying it -- it's just the teaching part I'm not so sure about.

So in hopes of having some good news, I am finally done with all the French administrative, bureaucratic garbage for the rest of my stay -- I hope! Both yesterday and Tuesday I went to the CAF office which had been closed during the entire month of February, with all my filled out forms and carte de sejour. I don't know what the next step is, but at least I handed in all my documents so a folder could be created for me, meaning that in about a month, I'm going to start being reimbursed for about half of the money I've been spending on rent!! And if all goes well, it can't be better timing, as I'm going to need a bit of spending money for my trip to Germany and Spain over Spring Break :)

Taper sur bois

Is that how the French translate knock on wood? Either way, I'm doing it!

After a lovely winter excursion up to the Alps and my dad's house -- this morning we took a walk around Lac d'Annecy and went to the Sunday farmer's market in Annecy le Vieux -- a quick afternoon flight brings me back to Antibes and what I think will be the start of a beautiful French spring!

Lac d'Annecy under its morning winter fog. Today was my third time around it!

Although it's not quite spring yet, I have every indication to believe it is in the South of France. I was only wearing a tee-shirt with a tanktop underneath, but already the double layer was too much for me in the 60+ degree weather! My roommate says the rain is behind us now and since she's been living here for seven years, I'll take her word for it.

So knock on wood that I don't jinx this beautiful weather!

Flying down here, I opted to go for a window seat -- which I never do. Since I'm used to taking super long flights, I prefer the aisle seats because I have a bit more room to spread out, and I don't have to bug people sleeping in their seats next to me if I need to go to the lavatory or stretch my legs around the cabin.

The decision quickly paid off as I saw all of Geneva under a cloudless, 55-degree sky. The last two times I've flown in/out of Geneva, it was muddled in dark clouds and fog. Another advantage was seeing the Alps all the way down to Nice including Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in France!

Once we reached the Baie des Anges down here, we spent nearly half of our 45-minute flight circling the ocean, waiting for our cue to land. During the unnecessarily long circle, I actually was able to locate my apartment BUILDING in Antibes, I saw Monte-Carlo, the costal Lérins Islands where the Man in the Iron Mask was said to be jailed, and even part of the long peninsula that is the Italian Riviera which extended long beyond my line of sight.

As much as I'm not ready to go back to class tomorrow, this weather is enough to motivate me to get out and enjoy my second half of the program in France! Plus, it's only one month until my next break and there are a lot of holidays between February and April, meaning I don't have to plan too hard to give a fun cultural lesson ;-)

Shakespeare Got to Get Paid, Son

If Courtney Randall and Jessica Sanborn read this, the headline's written for them ;)

Point of my story today, boys and girls, IS THAT I FINALLY GOT PAID!!! We're supposedly directly deposited (yeah, that's right I made that a verb) our salaries either on the last day of the month or the last Friday of the month, whichever comes first.

Today actually happens to be neither of those. But since I now have more than 50 Euros in my account, guess where I just went??

I'll give you a hint, it's the biggest grocery store possibly in the world:

Ok, that might have been an exaggeration, but Carrefour certainly puts Costco to shame.

However, the most alarming thing for me today -- while there were many, it's been difficult to pinpoint only one -- was the amount I spent. This junk better last me the next two weeks before I go to California.

Call me crazy if you will, but I just dropped 70 Euros on food. And it only filled two grocery bags... (For those of you not in the know, French grocery bags are like big totes, so it's a bit more than you could fit into two American "paper or plastic" bags.)

I guess I finally let my inhibitions go and picked quality over (monetary) quantity this time. I've always eyed the wines, ripe fruits and veggies and exotic fish every time I go, but instead I tend to squeak by on frozen veggies and chicken or rice/pasta products because they're cheap.

Not today. I guess we're really getting ready for spring, because there was an entire section dedicated just to red berries in the produce aisle! And without even hesitating, I threw THREE cartons of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries into my cart.... mmmm. And in the fish aisle, I tossed in a couple of (de-headed THANK YOU GOD) shrimp and tuna steak! Since I was on a roll, I decided to let myself "splurge" even more and went for some wheat pita shells.

But in my defense, I did buy a couple of other frozen/non-perishable items that could stay on my shelf and freezer for quite awhile. So hopefully this does last me until mid-February.

Another really exciting thing at Carrefour is the ridiculous amount of people there! Usually I go after lunch and the crowds are horrendous. So I figured, hey I'll go at 10 in the morning and avoid the insanity.

Totally wrong.

To make matters worse, I guess today was stocking day, so employees were busy humming about the store on foot, roller-skates (no, not in-lines, actual retro skates), carts, and what I can only manage to describe as mini-buses precariously filled beyond their weight capacity with boxes and crates.

One man was driving a little too recklessly for being indoors, in a zoo nonetheless. He let a few people cross the aisle and I guess got tired of waiting, because as I set foot in the aisle, he zoomed forward completely disregarding me or my life.

He then proceeded to give out this hearty bellow of a laugh (that really freaked me out) and looked me dead in the eye. I kid you not, this is what he said to me:

"Je veux vous écraser."

Translation: I want to CRUSH you. JESUS, who are these people?!?!

...11 DAYS UNTIL CALIFORNIA!!

Pétanque

Very cautiously and slowly, like a newborn foal awkwardly testing out its legs for the very first time once the winter's snow melts away, spring is encroaching on my Antibes life.

While winter did have its low points, overall it was a fairly bland one seeing as how I was still wearing shorts into November. But to give new meaning to an old adeage, when it rained, it poured. Last week I was drenched with torrential downpours and today I let my super white legs have their first taste of fresh 2008 air. Well, yes, they're white but perhaps not super, as I've been using sunless tanner lately ;)

I take that back. They probably are ghastly, but since I'm the palest person I know they're not as white as they could be. I figured I'd spare all the sun-drenched locals.

But getting back to downtown Antibes -- In December, I gave Aimee the grand tour and showed her along the seaboard. It was a ghost town; hardly anyone was out walking, enjoying the rare sunny rays in the beginning of a dreary winter.

Yet today, that tide is changing. Dozens of people lounged about on the decks of an old abandoned cabana club and in their bathingsuits no less! After running to the gym and working out in my shorts, I decided to continue my journey down to the ocean where I soaked up some rays eating an apple and reading a few pages of my current book.

Of course, the best part was seeing all the elderly men out and about again.

No, not like that, I'm not a pervert.

Instead, they were breaking in the newly-installed courts. Each of them huddled up in a crowd to see who could get closest, and whose strategies were the best, whether landing their chrome balls with finesse, or out-right launching them with no regard to anyone else standing nearby was the best way to win.

That's right, just like how the groundhog sees his shadow in February, you know warmer days are sure to come when the French men take to the courts in light jackets and big hats to protect their delicate skin from the sun to play their beloved pastime.

You and I call it bocce ball or boules.

To them it's not just pétanque. It's more than that. It's a lifestyle.

...19 days until California!!