December: No clue where to start…
Teaching in December was super easy, I did Christmas lessons for the whole month of December, and by the whole month I really just mean the first 2 weeks. I’m sure you are all wondering about my lovely little angels in my video conference classes that I teach on Mondays with another English assistant Sarah. The little angels (and by little angels I mean horrible mean little devils) need to be entertained for the whole class, we (Sarah and I) have come to realize. So we have thrown everything out the window and now use youtube to teach them. It actually worked out pretty well. We only had the video conference one time in the month of December and we played a clip from the movie A Christmas Story. My friend Sarah is from England and she has never seen that movie so when we were planning our Christmas lesson for the kids I said we had to play a clip from that movie. Can you guess what scene we used? I’m sure you all can… yes it was the scene when the boy sticks his tongue to the pole. But anyways Sarah and the kids loved it; they thought it was the funniest thing ever. One kid even asked what the link was so he could watch it at home. My other Christmas lessons in my other schools were good, I gave them a word search with American Christmas vocabulary. Not sure if you all know this, cause I didn’t but the Brits call Santa Claus, Father Christmas. I know kinda weird. LOL. One of the Christmas vocabulary words I used was eggnog. Big mistake, it was kinda really hard to explain to 8 year olds what eggnog was and then teachers were even more confused. I guess they have never heard of it, which I can understand but the teachers were like “there are eggs in it? And milk? And I’m really confused as to what this drink eggnog is…” But even though the kids don’t really understand the word they actually remember it and like to stay it. OK so enough about teaching…
The weather: I have decided that I’m not cut out for this cold weather nonsense. I know I’m from New Jersey and its cold there in the winter, but being in North Carolina for 5 years has really changed my blood and I just can’t hang in this weather. I have become the hermit and no longer enjoy going outside. When I do I have about 15 layers on. For a few days in the middle of December we were getting snow everyday but since it rains here all the time nothing really sticks, which is a major bummer. And school was never closed either. Another major bummer.
OFII: Now I know none of you know what OFII (the pronunciation is OH-FEE) is but it truly is a pain in the butt for all non-EU members. OFII is the program that runs all the visa information for all visa holding foreigners. I hate them! Really I do and so does all the other North Americans (I say North Americans cause we do have some Canadians here too) and all the South Americans and Australians and everyone else who has to experience the OFII. But boy do they give you the run around. So as some of you may know over the summer I had to go all the way to Atlanta, Georgia to get my working visa. Well it turns out that that whole trip was horse shit. That visa doesn’t really work here and only is really good for 3 months. But what I’m trying to get at here is that I had an appointment in the city of Nantes, which is about a 20 euro and 4 hour train ride to. The city is actually really nice and pretty and I had a great time there and my appointment was on a Monday so I got to miss all my classes that I teach on Mondays. I know, I know…. Why are you complaining Jen? You want to know why… it’s the principle. They make you run all the way to Atlanta and make it seem like it’s so important and you won’t be able to get into France without it but that’s just not the case. And then they have the nerve to make me run all over France to actually make it so that I’m legal and won’t get deported. It’s really frustrating. But Nantes is a great city and I really want live there.
Saw the latest movie Harry Potter here in Laval, and no, it wasn’t in English, but I understood most of it and it was my first movie experience here is France. I love going to the movies and I’m a personal fans of the Harry Potter films, the whole French movie experience was great, just like the movies in America, over priced tickets with over priced candy and popcorn. Oh but the one difference is that the popcorn is more like kettle corn than buttered popcorn, NOT A FAN! But that’s ok, oh and another thing that’s different is grape skittles. I do enjoy a good pack of skittles from time to time and especially at the movies and grape is the best flavor but I was extremely disappointed with the French skittles. They are not nearly as good as American skittles and they don’t even have the grape flavor ones, they have the a purple skittle but it’s not grape flavor, it’s some nasty flavor purple color skittle.
Christmas Market: So these Christmas markets are huge here in Europe. Every town and city has these little Christmas markets during the month of December; you can find them in any city big or small. They are great too, they are outside, and there are tons of little sheds like houses, and everyone decorates them all Christmasie and each shed has a theme or is a certain product or store. They have ones that sells food, wine, cheese, toys, bread, hats, scarves, and well you get the idea, but they are really festive and can put you right in the holiday spirit. The one in Laval was super cute but the one in Paris on Les Champs Elysees was huge and had tons of stuff.
OK so these are the highlights of December!
No comments:
Post a Comment