October 10, 2008
Dear Diary,
Monday's visit to Lycee Henri Matisse went well. During my visit I sat in on three classes--Nadia PETIT, Paule VALLET, and Anne-Marie MISLEY (the one who ofered me a place to stay). Mme Petit's class is Terminale (seniors) and was the most well-behaved. Jenny (the assistant from London) and I talked individually with students and asked them questions. Basically the idea was to hold 2 min-long conversations with them. All of my convos went well, except for one. This guy acted like he couldn't speak English and one of the girls actually came over and offered to translate. I sent her back to her desk and proceeded to have a French/English convo with him. He could manage speaking English a little, but I think the main reason he doesn't try is because he doesn't feel confident about his ability to speak or hold convos. If I end up having to teach that class, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be one of the students I'll end up suggesting tutoring sessions for.
After Jenny and I finished up in Mme Misley's class, all three of us went to a restaurant in Colle-sur-Loup for lunch. I ate a yummy croque-monsieur with salad and then tried iles-flottants for dessert. The dessert was basically semi-cooked egg whites floating in a pool of icecream and caramel with toasted almonds on top. It didn't taste like much, but at the same time was very rich, so I didn't eat too much of it. After lunch we went back to the school where Jenny and I did paperwork (proces verbal, NIGAF, etc). The following pic is one I took on my way to school. You can see the mountains in the background....
I just remembered I forgot to talk about Sunday's hash experience. So yeah, Paul, Claire, and the other English woman picked up Wendy (lady from Trinidad) and me at the Cagnes-sur-Mer train station and drove us to Biot for the hiking/hash experience. It was basically a bunch of English speaking people, 40-70 years old, who somehow found an excuse to mix drinking beer and hiking. No lie. We did an uphill hike for about an hour and a half, stopped for a beer break, and turned around and went back. At the end there was a big fuss with people standing in a circle singing hash songs. People would be nominated to go into the middle of the circle, and then they would be made fun of and forced to chug a beer alongside other people. The experience was definitely different....
Now back to Monday: After visiting the school and getting stuff accomplished, I felt like going out. So I made plans with DouDou (this guy who worked at the hostel in Cimiez and gave me a ride in his Smartcar), and we ended up going to the movies just outside of Nice. We saw the movie Dan in Real Life dubbed in French. The French title of the movie was Coup de Foudre, which basically means "love at first sight." Very cute. Hadn't seen it before even though it was released in 2007. Guess I should get with the times, huh?
The next day (Tues) was my doctor's appointment, however Natalie Cerny ahd already warned us that there would be a greve (protest) and thus buses wouldn't be running. I talked with DouDou about it, and he offered to pick me up at 7:45am and drive me to my 8:30am appointment. He's really sweet.
The doctor's appointment went well and only lasted about an hour. Had to get an x-ray of my chest to see if my lungs were clear. They asked about my vaccination history, gave me a quick diabetes test (which was negative), and let me take the x-ray home with me! :) Wednesday and Thursday all assistants had mandatory training session where we brainstormed and came up with lesson plans and teaching suggestions. Bev and her bf Mike finally arrived in Nice (had missed original flight last week), so Lori and I showed them around a little bit and helped Bev open a bank account. Bev is way behind on everything and will be getting her carte de sejour later than the rest of us. If people got their paperwork in on time, then they are supposed to be receiving the carte de sejour (long-stay visa) in Dec/Jan.
Speaking of carte de sejours, Dan (an American assistant) and I went to the rectorat this afternoon and handed in our completed packets for the carte de sejours. So we should get our visas in Dec/Jan. I'm glad that part is over. Now a lot of us can breathe because that was the biggest thing in terms of essential paperwork.
My goals for the weekend are to (a) lay on the beach adn get some sun, (b) write a mass email to family/friends, (c) prepare lesson plans for next week, and (d) start sending some postcards to the USA. :)
That's all for now. I'm sitting on the beach playing with pebbles and thinking about those postcards that I have in my bag...so I'm gonna go start writing a few people. Talk to you sooooooooon!
-Ashley
Monday's visit to Lycee Henri Matisse went well. During my visit I sat in on three classes--Nadia PETIT, Paule VALLET, and Anne-Marie MISLEY (the one who ofered me a place to stay). Mme Petit's class is Terminale (seniors) and was the most well-behaved. Jenny (the assistant from London) and I talked individually with students and asked them questions. Basically the idea was to hold 2 min-long conversations with them. All of my convos went well, except for one. This guy acted like he couldn't speak English and one of the girls actually came over and offered to translate. I sent her back to her desk and proceeded to have a French/English convo with him. He could manage speaking English a little, but I think the main reason he doesn't try is because he doesn't feel confident about his ability to speak or hold convos. If I end up having to teach that class, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be one of the students I'll end up suggesting tutoring sessions for.
After Jenny and I finished up in Mme Misley's class, all three of us went to a restaurant in Colle-sur-Loup for lunch. I ate a yummy croque-monsieur with salad and then tried iles-flottants for dessert. The dessert was basically semi-cooked egg whites floating in a pool of icecream and caramel with toasted almonds on top. It didn't taste like much, but at the same time was very rich, so I didn't eat too much of it. After lunch we went back to the school where Jenny and I did paperwork (proces verbal, NIGAF, etc). The following pic is one I took on my way to school. You can see the mountains in the background....
I just remembered I forgot to talk about Sunday's hash experience. So yeah, Paul, Claire, and the other English woman picked up Wendy (lady from Trinidad) and me at the Cagnes-sur-Mer train station and drove us to Biot for the hiking/hash experience. It was basically a bunch of English speaking people, 40-70 years old, who somehow found an excuse to mix drinking beer and hiking. No lie. We did an uphill hike for about an hour and a half, stopped for a beer break, and turned around and went back. At the end there was a big fuss with people standing in a circle singing hash songs. People would be nominated to go into the middle of the circle, and then they would be made fun of and forced to chug a beer alongside other people. The experience was definitely different....
Now back to Monday: After visiting the school and getting stuff accomplished, I felt like going out. So I made plans with DouDou (this guy who worked at the hostel in Cimiez and gave me a ride in his Smartcar), and we ended up going to the movies just outside of Nice. We saw the movie Dan in Real Life dubbed in French. The French title of the movie was Coup de Foudre, which basically means "love at first sight." Very cute. Hadn't seen it before even though it was released in 2007. Guess I should get with the times, huh?
The next day (Tues) was my doctor's appointment, however Natalie Cerny ahd already warned us that there would be a greve (protest) and thus buses wouldn't be running. I talked with DouDou about it, and he offered to pick me up at 7:45am and drive me to my 8:30am appointment. He's really sweet.
The doctor's appointment went well and only lasted about an hour. Had to get an x-ray of my chest to see if my lungs were clear. They asked about my vaccination history, gave me a quick diabetes test (which was negative), and let me take the x-ray home with me! :) Wednesday and Thursday all assistants had mandatory training session where we brainstormed and came up with lesson plans and teaching suggestions. Bev and her bf Mike finally arrived in Nice (had missed original flight last week), so Lori and I showed them around a little bit and helped Bev open a bank account. Bev is way behind on everything and will be getting her carte de sejour later than the rest of us. If people got their paperwork in on time, then they are supposed to be receiving the carte de sejour (long-stay visa) in Dec/Jan.
Speaking of carte de sejours, Dan (an American assistant) and I went to the rectorat this afternoon and handed in our completed packets for the carte de sejours. So we should get our visas in Dec/Jan. I'm glad that part is over. Now a lot of us can breathe because that was the biggest thing in terms of essential paperwork.
My goals for the weekend are to (a) lay on the beach adn get some sun, (b) write a mass email to family/friends, (c) prepare lesson plans for next week, and (d) start sending some postcards to the USA. :)
That's all for now. I'm sitting on the beach playing with pebbles and thinking about those postcards that I have in my bag...so I'm gonna go start writing a few people. Talk to you sooooooooon!
-Ashley
posted by ashley at
3:24 PM
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