"Oh My Log!"

Highlights of the past week or so, in no particular order:

-I moved my bed and desk (to the only other place they fit...not a whole lot of interior decorating options in here, lol) and now it feels much more spacious in my room!

-Something seemed to click with me yesterday when I was at my troublesome school. It just felt better...though the kids were the same.

-The teachers in my schools all of a sudden started talking to me more this week! I dunno if they finally realized I'm gonna be around all year and they may as well speak to me, lol, or if it's cuz of the Holidays, but I like it!

-One of the teachers I work with invited me to her house on Thursday for coffee!! I was SO excited cuz I've heard of other assistants whose teachers invite them to do things, but it hadn't happened to me.

-I lit my two candles last night, turned on my mini string of christmas lights and read a French tabloid last night in the warmth of my little studio. It was great.

-A little 6 year old today instead of saying "goodbye" when I left shouted "I LOVE YOU!" hahaha I was laughing so hard as I walked out of that school.

-Harry Potter is officially coming to Orleans in English tomorrow! Guess I'll get to see it earlier than I thought :)

-Went to an amature improve night at the community center the other night and before the show we had to write a sentence going along the theme "end of the year" and then put it in a hat. During the show they had random audience members pick out the pieces of paper and read them. I got chosen to choose a paper and out of the probably 100 pieces of paper in there chose my own! CRAZY!

-Last week after one of my French classes my friends and I walked past a bar that we like and saw that there was music inside, so we decided to check it out. It was an American Folk Music night! With a guy from Indiana and a guy from France being the two artists. REALLY cool! It reminded me of the Root Note (which everyone here says I talk about too much...haha EUROPEAN PUBLICITY!)

I'm sure there is more, but those are the ones that come directly to mind. I have some pics on my phone from the Marche de Noel that I'll post on my photobucket account soon. Post coming soon: A Day In the Life Of Meg, France Edition.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Noel!

Hey guys! I feel like I've been miss negativity lately...sorry 'bout that. France has been rough for me the past month and a half, as you can tell, but I'm trying really hard to get past the homesickness and just enjoy what I have here. French class is going well and our teacher is a lively personality, indeed! My students are all really antsy and chatty lately because of the holidays, but I can feel the classroom/teaching thing getting easier for me...though I still have lots of problems with my CM1s and CM2s, but my "advisor" or sorts is coming on Monday to observe my CM1 and my CE2 classes in that school and help me figure out what I can do to achieve a more stable classroom with these kids.

One of my CE2 kids made me something the other day and gave it to me at the beginning of class. I was so tickled! It's supposed to be the American flag (which I taught them about during the first week of class), but he thought that 50 stars would be too difficult a feat for him, so he just drew one big one (this is what he told me), hehe. The back is supposed to say "Pour Meg....Mathieu," but it ended up saying "Pour Meogge" with the last "e" crossed out. It's great! :) I'm going to hang it on my wall.
As I mentioned in my second to last post, Christmas markets are big in France, and the Christmas market in our city center finally began (after about a week and a half of setting up) on Wednesday! It's great! (Expensive as all get out, but really fun!) They even have an ice skating "rink"...it's not really a rink, but more of a path, seeing as the entire market is located in a small plaza. It's 5 euros to reserve a spot on the rink (you have to call ahead to reserve a spot, as they only let a certain amount of people in at a time), so I'm thinking I'll be leaving the Christmas market ice skating to the families. Anyway, it just wouldn't feel like real ice skating without the risk of falling through the ice into a freezing pond of water and dead fish. Now THAT'S Christmas.

My friends and I tried to see Harry Potter in English the other day, but apparently the internet lies sometimes, and the local theatres didn't have it in English. I talked to the people I'm going to England with for break and we've decided to see the English version there. I'm so excited to finally be able to see it! I've heard good things...

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Never will I be a teacher.

This is how I feel in my CM1 and CM2 classes. I REALLY wish I could quit that school. It's not in the inner city or even near that, but it feels like this. I don't understand how some people CHOOSE to teach in these kinds of classes.

So, the Thanksgiving feasts are over and everyone's looking towards Christmas now! We American Assistants got together last Friday night, invited some "foreigners," and we each made a dish to pass to share as much of the Thanksgiving tradition as we could. We ate picnic style at Tom's apartment, and he supplied paper and markers so that we could all make handprint turkeys (see above for mine [left] and my friend Lana's [right]). It was lots of fun! We even had pumpkin pie (pumpkins are NOT easy to come by around here...and it was made from a real pumpkin too)!! We even took a few minutes before eating to go around and say what we were thankful for, so that was really nice.

Then yesterday I went to the Marché de Noël (Christmas Market) in the Parc des Expositions, which was super cool. They had food, cotton candy, Santa!, Moving displays of woodland creatures doing random stuff in houses...kinda weird...see photobucket for pics, crafts for sale, and these really creepy singing space people...creepy...REALLY weird. It was tons of fun, and I even got to get a Santon, which I'd heard about for years in French classes. I've wanted one ever since my French class in high school! :-D


It snowed ALL day yesterday, and it was coming down pretty hard too, which resulted in a couple inches of snow and a full stop to all public transportation, which means no work for us assistants today! Snow day! :-D Patrick was right. When I first moved here and asked him about snow, he said, "If it snows two inches, everything shuts down." I'm liking this :)

Also, this snow is SO beautiful! It's the first time I've really noticed the beauty in a while, since in WI it's beautiful for about 2 seconds, until you realize you'll have to shovel it, drive in it, and trudge in it. Speaking of trudging, I DEFINITELY need to buy a pair of winter boots! I was slippin' and slidin' all over the place last night on my way home. Luckily I DO have a sturdy umbrella now.

I also bought my tickets last night for the eurorail to London for Christmas. Turkish delight, here I come! :-D Well, I'm being observed tomorrow morning by our program coordinator, so I'd better go over my lessons again, and do my French homework. A few paragraphs on what I think about France so far. I'll try not to let my homesickness do the talking.

À bientôt!

Meg

P.S. There are tons of new pictures in my photobucket album, if you're interested!

Working on Turkey Day...WeIrD!

Hey everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging more often like I said I would. I'll try to get better about that.

The Thursday after my last blog we had the day off due to a national holiday, so I took a trip with a couple of friends of mine to Tours, where my friend Stevy lives. My friends spent the day with Stevy and me before heading back to Orleans, but I stayed at Stevy's for the next couple of days. Tours is a great city! From what I saw of it, it seems a bit busier than Orleans, and definitely with more to do! It was really nice to get to ride around in a car, too. Actually, as Stevy and I were driving around I felt like I was back in Madison, which was really nice, since I've been really, really homesick lately. I dunno what it is exactly, but I've never felt this homesick in my life! I've actually never really had problems with homesickness, that I can remember. Naturally there have been times where I've missed my family and friends when I'm away, but never in a way that aches like this and makes me wish time were going faster. I really, really hope this feeling goes away soon, because I still have 6 months here...and I'd rather enjoy my time in France and appreciate how lucky I am to have this opportunity.

The Friday that I spent with Stevy was particularly cool, as we got to see Amel Bent in concert...for free! Stevy is a gospel singer, you see, and the bass player that plays with them also plays with Amel, so he got us free tickets and backstage passes...I'd never had a backstage pass before in my life, so that was really neat! lol Unfortunately Amel was in the shower when we were back there, so we didn't get to meet her. We did, though, get to talk to Stevy's bassist (super cool guy!) and the backup singers and the other musicians. It was really neat!

Then this past weekend I got to go to Madrid to visit my friends Noelia and Pilar, which was great! I flew out of Paris on Thursday night and stayed at Noelia's apartment. On Friday I did a bit of exploring on my own while Noelia and Pilar were at work, and then the three of us met up and went to lunch, and then they showed me a bunch of the city. Harry Potter opened in Spain that night, so Pilar went to that and Noelia and I hung out just the two of us. I can't wait to see Harry Potter, but it's not playing in English in Orleans, so some friends and I are going to wait to see it in Paris, assuming we can find a place in Paris that's playing the English version. I almost went to see it tonight in French, but after watching the trailer I just thought it'd be too odd seeing it dubbed before seeing the original version. I'm not a big fan of dubbed films. Subtitles are a much better option, as it gives those who understand the original language the option of listening to the dialogue in it's original tongue and those who don't the chance to read the dialogue, but I digress...hardcore. ;)

Saturday we got to go to yet ANOTHER free concert, and this time of one of my favorite Latina artists, Julieta Venegas! I couldn't believe it when Noelia's roommate told us that she would be playing for FREE in one of the city plazas! What a great birthday present! It also happened to be the first concert she had given after giving birth, which is pretty cool. The reason she was in Madrid was because there was a Mexican Revolution Anniversary celebration going on in the plaza, in fact we had walked through it the night before and heard a mariachi group playing! At the sides of the stage were food stands serving traditional Mexican foods, too. After the concert we waited in line 45 minutes at least to get some food...it was worth it, though. Unfortunately I got a fever about 2 hours after the concert and was unable to enjoy doing anything else the rest of the weekend...which meant I spent my birthday (Sunday) doing little to nothing (we went to a market in the morning and then to lunch, but I just felt like crap and ended up sleeping the rest of the day pretty much). Sick or not, it was nice to spend my birthday weekend with good friends and in such a beautiful city! I'd love to go back to Madrid!


By Monday afternoon I was back in Orleans and planning lessons. That night I went to a gathering of Foreigners in Orleans (namely university students and language assistants), but didn't end up meeting anyone new, as it was a pretty cliquey night. Then on Tuesday I finally started taking a French class! (In fact, I have a bit of homework to do tonight before going to bed...once I'm done preparing my classes for tomorrow that is...though all I have to do in that regard is color/cut/paste some flashcards and draw a handprint turkey, lol) It was a great class. I learned a lot in just the 2 hours that we were there, and it was nice to be in an academic sort of environment again, even if it is just a community class. Plus it only costs 15 euros for a class that meets two hours a session, two sessions a week until June! Good deal!

So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving...and another reason for homesickness. I'm teaching my kids a little bit about the holiday...but not going into any "Pilgrims and Indians...nice, friendly dinner" crap. Just keeping it simple and traditional. Then at night I have the French class, where we'll actually be having a "Thanksgiving" party-type deal (just bringing in treats and dressing up as either a celebrity or a stereotype from our countries). Friday the other American assistants and myself will be doing a Thanksgiving dinner as close to American as we can get it. Since only a few assistants have ovens handy, we'll be spread out around the city trying to cook for it, but everyone is bringing a dish, and mine is greenbean casserole...if I can find the ingredients. I'm pretty excited for that, but I miss my family (though my family's all spread out at the moment, it's not just me who isn't home).

Anywho, a very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you are all well and that you enjoy your national holiday tomorrow...while I'm at work ;)

Back to school, Back to school

Coucou tout le monde!

Well, I'm back after a two week "All Saints Day" break (during most of which I had the flu, though seeing as I had no plans anyway, it was okay). My mom and step-dad met me in Paris last Mondayand we spent three days touring the city, after which we took the train back to Orleans, where they stayed with the same people I stayed with when I first got here. They left on Saturday and I miss them very much, but it was nice to have them here! (Particularly since I won't be able to make it home for Christmas...:( I saw a christmas display in a shop window today and teared up. No family at Christmas?! It's going to be weird.)

So I had my first day back at school today and it was a MESS. Three classes, two disasters! The kids in two of the classes that I teach in one of my schools just absolutely refuse to listen to me. I'll ask the class to settle down, they continue to talk. I separate students, they yell across the room or start kicking their new neighbor. I ask everyone to listen, they all start asking me questions...no raised hands, no correlation to the lesson, just blurted out nonsense. I wanted to talk with one of the instructors today (who is also the principal) to see what I could be doing better. What I could be doing to maintain order in the classroom. See, I take the class in halves into an adjacent classroom, so she's not there to provide the discipline. I feel like in her classroom her mere presence makes the kids shut up, whereas it seems my mere presence induces chaos. I was never trained as a teacher. I don't speak their language fluently. And they don't understand my language.

I have absolutely no idea what to do. I'm going to go in early next Monday (usually I go there again on Thursday, but this Thursday is ANOTHER holiday! hahaha) to talk to the other teachers about it and see if they have any ideas. In all fairness, they COMPLETELY warned me before I started teaching at that school. Even they have trouble maintaining order in their classrooms. I don't know why they still teach. Lack of other options, perhaps? Cuz I can't see anyone loving that job.

On another note, I still haven't found a club or anything to join, but I'm going to keep looking. I know there are options, it's just a matter of me getting my but to the youth involvement bureau and picking up a pamphlet. I was interested in taking these Indian dance lessons, but it turns out they're 300euros for now until June/July. Er...no thanks...I'll find something else. I'd just really like to get some more French conversation time in (I'd like to maybe sign up for a French class here...they have community classes that are cheap, and would be nice because it'll push me to work more on grammar and new vocab!) and I'd like to meet more French people. I know a few, but not many, and not well. If I'm ever going to understand this culture better and accept the differences that are currently so frustrating, I'll need some French friends to help me get there!

And on another random note: I'm officially going to Madrid for my birthday weekend! I bought my ticket the other day with Ryanair out of Paris. I'll be staying with a friend of mine (one of last year's amities from La Crosse, for those of you who even know what an "amity" is), Noelia, and will get to see Pilar too! I can't wait. I love those ladies and I'm SO excited to speak Spanish and see their city (even when I studied in Spain, I never visited Madrid)!

Well, I guess that's it for the moment. I'll try updating more often so I can go into more detail.

A Bientôt!

Flashback

Remember my troubles on the tram the first day I rode? My 20 euro fine? The tears? The confusion? The frustration? WELL, my friend Julicia summed up the experience just perfectly in her blog, so I thought (with her permission, of course) I'd share the exerpt with you all:

"In America, when you don’t pay the bus fare and you try to sneak in the side door, the bus driver yells at you. In France, they have the controllers. Suited men with hard faces and empty eyes, who ascend upon a bus or tram from random stops, and freeze the population within the bus. No one can get off, no one can get on. For 5, 10, 15 minutes, everyone is immobile. The controllers walk up and down every aisle, checking bus tickets, making sure passes aren’t expired, scrutinizing tram tickets. If you were an obedient citizen, the most you will feel is the chill when the controller grabs your card from your hand and intensely reads the timestamp. If not, you are humiliated in front of everyone for not having paid the 1€40 fare, led off the bus, and written up for a 25€ fine…or more, depending on the transgression. "

Thanks, Julicia!

My name is Eggs.

And so ends the first two weeks of my teaching post. It is officially "Toussaint" vacation. That's right, folks, an entire week and a half of paid vacation all in the name of All Saints Day, or as I like to think of it, Halloween vacation. My goal this week was that my 20 minute Halloween lessons on colors and numbers with a few ghosts and witches thrown in would warm the hearts of my 6-10 year olds in a Tim Burton-esque way. Unfortunately for all, 2o minutes just isn't enough time to review past material, learn about a holiday, learn 5 new colors, color-by-number, AND watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" five or six times. Bummer. I did wear my 3D ghost earrings, however, which were a big hit. (He's wearing an orange and white striped t-shirt. I love it.)

So, what's Meg doing for her first big holiday in France, you might be asking yourself? Meg's asking herself the same thing. Well, with 163 euros in the bank, I've got two options: 1.Explore the Eastern half of the city or 2.Explore the Western half of the city (which I'm pretty convinced is just apartments). Luckily, I will be meeting Stevy (a friend from Tours, which probably half the people who read this know) in Paris on Halloween and then welcoming my parents into the city the next day! Mom, Tom, and I will be exploring Paris for the last three days of my break, before we will head back to Orleans (I go back to work on Thursday, but only for one day, before it's another three-day weekend...as always!). Unfortunately, they have to head back to London on Saturday afternoon in order to catch their plane back to the states the next morning.

As you may have heard, France has been all about the "grève" these past few weeks, as the government has been in the process of deciding whether or not to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the pension age to 67. This stike has been affecting transportation above all else. Last Thursday, for example, I failed to make it to my first class of the year due to the highschoolers blocking the tramway in the city center. (The tram in Orleans runs right through the main Plaza, which is where large groups congregate for...well, large group events. This is a problem.) Not only has forms of public transportation like the tram systems and the TGV been affected, but the gas stations have actually been running out of gas due to blocked fuel tanks, leaving hundreds of drivers stranded at the pump. The strikers (particularly the high schoolers...don't even get me started!) have become quite violent in some major French cities. Luckily for us here in Orleans, the protests, though inconvenient, have been pretty peaceful. But perhaps I should knock on wood, as the committee set to make this "major" decision has had to postpone the result (the final decision was supposed to be made yesterday). With the Toussaint holiday starting tomorrow, we can all only hope that the strike goes on a week and a half-long pause (unlikely), so that everyone can enjoy their travel plans "grève"-free.

Now, to wrap up today's post, here a few mini-anecdotes from the past 2 weeks:

Anecdote Number 1:
>You may be wondering about the title of this particular post. Allow me to fill you in. Lesson number one with my CP students (again, the 6 and 7 year olds) was "hello, what's your name? My name is____." Seems simple enough, right? I talk to a puppet, we sing a "hello" song, and then we practice. Easy peesy, right? Um...
So week number two we review. Enjoy the following peak at one of my classes review week one's material:

Me: (French)What did we learn last time I was here? Does anyone remember?
*a few hands go up, I call on one*
Student: (French) A song!
Me: Good. We learned a song. (French) Would you like to sing the song?
Students: Ouaaa! (yes, in kid French)
All: Hello, Hello, Hello, What's your name? Hello, Hello, Hello. My name is____, My name is____. Hello,____. Hello,____, Hello.
Me: Good. (French)And, what does (English)"My name is____" (French)mean in French?
*student answers correctly*
Me: Very good. (French) And what does (English) "What's your name?" (French) mean in French?
*student answers correctly*
Me: Well done. (French) Who wants to come up here and have a conversation with me?
*hands go up. I call on one. Little boy comes to front. Suddenly VERY shy.*
Me: Hello.
Little boy: 'ello.
Me: What's your name?
Little boy: Was er na?
Me: My name is Meg. What's..
Little boy: ai na eh Eggs.

Ok, so not ready for conversations just yet.


Anecdote Number 2:
>Last week, before beginning to teach in any of my classrooms, I toured the schools with my advisor. Some of the teachers had me come to the front and introduce myself, then let the students ask me questions in French. One teacher actually refused to let me answer some of the questions, actually telling the students, who had had their hands up for about a minute, that their questions were not interesting enough. Just flat out, "That's not an interesting question," or, "That's a dumb question. Next?"

Anecdote Number 3:
>I wasn't so sure this year would go well when I sat in on a CP class taught by a "traveling English teacher" (a teacher who travels from school to school, just like me, teaching only English) and burst out laughing when they started singing the "hello" song (above). The kid right in front of me was completely tone deaf, but SO into the song. Luckily, I think the teacher was the only one who noticed my lapse in maturity.

Anecdote Number 4:
>Short but sweet. I went to lunch the other day at the house of the couple who welcomed me here my first weekend. They ended lunch with a spread of five different kinds of cheese and a baguette. Mmm, France; it tastes so good.

Rock concert in the shadows of a centuries old church...aww, France :)

I went to a really nifty concert in a small plaza in Orleans the other day with some friends and took some videos of what I saw. Since it takes me FOREVER to load a video on my computer, I've only uploaded the best one.

The band was the first band playing in a music festival going on all month long. This particular band (Karpatt) was a hoot and a half! These guys were born to entertain! Not only were they incredibly talented (and playing a FREE concert! I would've paid lots to see these guys...if I had the money, lol), but you could just feel the love emanating through their instruments.

This was not the best song, but it's the only one I filled in its entirety. I felt like I was probably blocking someone's view with my camera held high in the air...plus my arm started hurting. The song right after this one was a rap song (and it was AWESOME! It was really funny, though, because not 20 minutes before I had been telling Sarah how it seems to me that France is full of tall, white, bald rappers...and voila, case in point! hehe). Before starting the rap, however, he called upon the audience to give him three random words, which he used to create the rap. Raw talent, dude. Raw talent.


Alright, I'm off to print off some coloring sheets for my students. I'm teaching Halloween today! (:-D)

Photos!

I think that the best way for me to share my photos with you all is to open my photobucket account to you, where you can go whenever you so choose and browse the photos I've taken so far in Europe!

Enjoy!

FrUsTrAtEd

We’ll call this the LOW point of my culture shock track…

Je m’en fous DE:

(I’m sick OF:)

-les grèves (strikes)

-cigarette smoke (15 year olds walk around smoking like it’s no big thing too.)

-euhhh, bahhhh, le..le..le.. (the French “um…”)

-Paperwork

-being “Américaine” and the anti-American sentiments that come along with it

-harda$$ teachers

-Paperwork!

-being called “belle,” “eh, toi, Americaine!,” and “belle demoiselle” by random Frenchmen

-random men in the street shouting “’ello! You speak eengleesh? ‘ow ah ewe?”

-having an American accent

-PAPERWORK!

-no good nightlife (it’s an Orléans thing)

-the stupid exchange rate between the dollar and the euro (and hearing Brits complain about paying 35 pounds to cross the channel…I paid $1000 to get to a country that doesn’t respect me, how’s that?

-Being told to teach BRITISH words with my AMERICAN accent! (What happned to teaching MY culture?)

-Headaches

-Not understanding/faking understanding/misunderstanding

-FRANCE

The list is getting longer as today goes on, but I know deep down that it’s just the phase of culture shock that I’m in right now that’s getting me down. It’s normal. But JE M’EN FOUS! I’m SO crabby today! SO frustrated! Yesterday I got a headache halfway through the day (I was observing classes at two of my schools all day) and literally stopped being able to comprehend French in the middle of my teacher’s sentence. I just stopped understanding and processing anything he was saying and had to actually stop him and say, “wait. Start again in like 20 seconds. I can’t understand right now.” Can’t I just be fluent already or at least go to a Spanish speaking country where I actually understand what the heck is going on?! Lately I feel like I’m always taking a test; I can literally feel my brain thinking all the time. It’s exhausting, but I GUESS that’s me learning…or it had BETTER be me learning, or I’m putting myself through this for nothing.

This morning was more paperwork. Lunch break just ended. Now I have to go back to start lesson planning.

I’m privileged. I love my life. I’m privileged. I love my life. I’m privileged. I love my life. I’m privileged.

Children are SO tiring...

...but it's all worth it when things like this happen:

teacher (in French): Nicolas, bravo, you are so good at English!

student (6 years old): That's because I spent a week in Italy.

teacher (looks at me, laughing): That must be why.

Friday blog Part 2: School

Allo le monde (parte 2)

SCHOOL

This past week has been all about training. The main orientation, as I told you a couple of posts ago, was last Friday, but by Monday everyone was in their respective towns around Orléans-Tours, and we all had our own things to do. For me, that meant going to a two-part orientation on Monday and Tuesday with the other primary school assistants (there are only about 10 of us). We spent those two days talking about what to expect during these 7 months, the French school system (briefly), and basic theory. We were informed of the best places to find resources for the classroom, and we were introduced to our advisors and given our schedules. Before giving you a peak at my schedule, I’d like to explain the Orléans school system briefly (what I’ve learned so far, anyway):

The French school levels are quite similar to the U.S.’s, but go by different names. The levels are:

FIRST DEGREE

Maternelle (kindergarten)[ages 2-6]

Élémentaire (if combined with maternelle, the school is called an ‘école primaire’/primary school) [ages 6-11]

SECOND DEGREE

College (middle school)[ages 11-15]

Lycée (high school) [ages 15-18]

HIGHER EDUCATION

Université [age 18+]

I’ll be working with the kids in élémentaire, which is broken up as follows:

CP (cours préparatoire, ages 6-7)

CE1 (cours élémentaire 1st year, ages 7-8)

CE2 (cours élémentaire 2^nd year, ages 8-9)

CM1 (cours moyen 1st year, ages 9-10)

CM2 (cours moyen 2^nd year, ages 10-11)

In France children are required to begin learning English at 6 years of age (though up until three years ago, it was Spanish they were learning). I have a total of 10 classes that I will be working with each week. Three are CP, two CP/CE1, one CE2, one CE2/CM1, one CM1, one CM1/CM2, and one CM2. The classes that I’ll be writing actual lessons for and teaching myself are two of the CPs, one CP/CE1, and the CE2/CM1. In the rest of the classes I will be assisting the teachers by taking a group aside and helping them with pronunciation, culture, etc.

Just like in the U.S., France separates Church and State, and thus neither teacher nor student is allowed to wear any kind of religious paraphernalia or to talk about religion in the classroom. When it comes to holidays, we are only to teach the cultural aspects of the holidays, not their religious backgrounds or meanings. At this young an age, I don’t foresee that being much of a problem.

Teachers here also seem to be a bit more strict that in the U.S. Just a small example: In one of my schools the students were required to stand up when an adult entered the room, and could sit down only when the adult in charge said “thank you, you may be seated.” I found their voices were a bit stricter as well…but I haven’t really seen much yet, so I’ll give a better idea of the inside of a French elementary classroom once I’ve had a bit more experience.

Well, that’s all I have time for today. Until next time!

Lots of love, Meg