April showers

April 02, 2016

The smell of fresh cut grass and daffodils is in the air. The days are a tad longer and I have had a few glimpses of this thing called the sun? I got to visit with Heather over in Belgium and go to the assembly in English (yes!). We've had a lot of visitors (Lucia's family) come this month and last. Lucia couldn't eat sugar after her surgery so she started eating peanut butter (of course some I brought over), I have now made peanut butter 2 times a week for the past month. I'm telling they can't get enough of it. I finally convinced my southerners to come up to visit Lille and yes I'm pretty sure they enjoyed their visit. They rented a little place in Lille so I got a little vacation with them for a long weekend. I mean who wouldn't love eating delicious food (cough Michelin cough) , sunny days and a bit of quality vieux Lille markets and shopping? This is my last month on the job which got me in a reflective mood thinking about how it's gone over the last few months. Like most jobs I've ever had there wasn't much training to prepare for the experience.

Imagine a first day of teaching, opening a classroom with your new key, hearing 15 fourteen year olds running down the hallway cussing at each other in French slinking into the classroom and staring at you with disinterested blank faces. It's definitely been interesting. I teach at two completely different schools; at the one I'm constantly asked to stop explaining things in French for them and to create lesson plans about US propaganda in WW2 or texting abbreviations while at my other school it's a real struggle just to get them to participate (but hey I definitely improved my French with them). Do I feel like a better teacher,,,eih..., do I feel like I know what to do do now, yeah, can I tell French kids to calm their butts down, oh yeah! I have noticed the differences between the American and French school system and how differently the kids come out of them both. This past month I've been talking a lot about Dr.Seuss (it's national dr.seuss day in March), fashion, American food and working with fake American money.

I only have two weeks of teaching left and this month and next I'm going to do some more traveling as well. It's gonna go quick. I've been battling to get my housing allocation, my taxes done and all the fun stuff that comes with moving. Lucia laid one of her knuckles open on my freshly sharpened knives and had to go to the hospital 😫. I am a now her hands and feet... Now that she can't move, I'm trying to get her to teach me some more Italian and cooking stuffs before I leave. She keeps saying 'you're gonna miss me, or you're gonna miss this when you're gone' which in essence is her saying 'I'm going to miss you'. The hard thing is that most of the food you make over here uses ingredients that are easy to find and cheap over here while in the US they're expensive and vice versa. Like this delicious leek quiche, orechette pasta, cheese, ham, and herbes de Provence. Although I think we're starting to get them now.

I did put in for a renewal of my contract for next year and I've been applying (online of course) for summer jobs back in Fort Wayne. I renewed the contract this time choosing the academie of Bordeaux, I got a very good recomendation from my school principal and so I had high hopes up until I read about the time and chances involved in being accepted a second time. Now basically it is a sit and wait game and who knows if I am accepted it might be another region altogether. Here's to hoping. Toodles