This week has been fairly eventful. Last Friday my roommate, Maud, had 2 friends visiting from Brest. They were really fun and outgoing, corrected my pidgin French and got really excited to try to speak to me in English. Unfortunately, Maud usually goes home to Brest for the weekends so this was one of her few Friday nights in St. Brieuc. Probably the funniest part of the night was when we decided to go home around 2 and got a ride home from one of our friends who lives outside town and always drives (sober, don't get worried). Maud and her friends were going to go to this discothèque in town but decided not to at the last minute, after we had already filled the car. They said they didn't mind walking home so we left in the car. After dropping off one assistant we headed in my direction only to see Maud and her friends faisaient le stop (hitch hiking) on our street. Of course, we picked them up and took them home but they were really surprised when they saw it was us in the car! It was pretty funny.
One Tuesday night, I met my friend Jessica in a bar called Le Piano Bleu where they often have live music. Unfortunately, the music was truely terrible that night. Really cheesy. There was one singer and one keyboard but because they were using a synthesizer it sounded like they had a whole orchestra behind them. To make matters worse, the singer heard us speaking English and announced to the whole room that there were some beautiful Americans in the room. She also tried to speak to us in English. This made it really hard to leave when we wanted to because as soon as we got up she announced that we were leaving and said how sad she was. It was pretty annoying and made us think about how inappropriate that would be at home. Imagine some Spanish people came into a bar in Plymouth Meeting and the singer started saying. "Hola! Look everyone! Spanish people!" It would be so rude! Anyway, things like that happen all the time here and we often feel like we're on display. After that though, we met Maud and some of her friends from IUFM (teacher training college you attend after getting your Bachelor's Degree) at one of our favorite bars, O'Kenny (NOT O'Kenny's, I made that mistake only once). They were really fun and we had a great time. They all have to take a music class so they can work on music with the kids and so they were singing the songs they had learned in English to me. It was really funny to hear French voices singing spirituals!
I've also been wanting to go to the movies here but ALL the American movies are dubbed here. They almost never use sub-titles. However, this nice teacher just left me a schedule of movies in the version originale in my mail box! November is Documentary Month in his film club and so I can see Murderball in the original English if I want. I ahve been wanted to see it so I think I will.
Tonight, Sophia is coming to stay so we can take the train tomorrow to Nantes to catch our plane to Ireland!! I'm getting really excited to get there!


p.s. I'm still sans Internet chez moi!

My new roommate!

I have a new roommate! She sleeps in the same room as me but she's usually awake eating all night and sleeps all day. She's a mosquito! I would tell you her name but the things I call her aren't fit to publish. Last night she bit me on the end of my nose. I had never experienced the urge to mortally wound another creature until last night when I sat in bed, half asleep, at 4am waiting for her to fly by so I could kill her. Tomorrow one of my fellow teachers is going to give me a truc that emits some kind of sound only mosquitos can hear and keeps them away (supposedly). I really hope it works since she especially likes to bite my face and there's only so much that makeup can cover!

Other than that (and the lack of Internet) my new house is wonderful and my roommates are très sympa! It's SO nice to have a kitchen. La Dolce Vegan is getting a work out (especially since I discovered that sweet potatoes and squash are available at the market and that international and tofu type foods are available at the organic food store).

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to write in a while. We still don't have the Internet hooked up in my house and since I only work 3 days a week, Thursday through Monday I am basically without Internet.

This weekend was the semi-final for the Rugby World Cup and, unfortunately, France lost to England. I think the loss was especially painful because England and France have such a long standing rivalry. I also watched the other semi-final in which a very scrappy Argentinian team was badly beaten by South Africa. (A non-Anglophone country has never won the Rugby World Cup.) Argentina's team was really adorable, though, and they all cried during their national anthem (that was before they lost, so they are just an emotional group I guess).

In other news, yesterday I was in Rennes for my medical appt. (which all non-EU citizens must have to make sure we don't have tuberculosis or something). The appt. itself was uneventful but it was fun being back in Rennes (although, the nurse who checked my eyes did tell me I had the vision of a pilot!!). We ate lunch at a really good crêperie in the Place Sainte Anne where I had a ratatouille and egg crêpe. After that, we did a little shopping and headed home.

My classes have been going fairly well. Some better than others, of course, but for the most part, well. I did have one girl not understand the word "Paris", which was alarming since she'd been studying English for 4 years, but I have also had some students whose levels were surprisingly good.

Also, Sophia and I are going to Ireland for our Toussaint vacation!! Dublin and Cork! It should be very exciting.

Hopefully, someday before I leave France I'll have the internet in my very own home and I'll be able to load pictures. On verra. . .

Rugby!

This weekend was the rugby match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the French team (Les Bleus). I had to put aside my love of New Zealand for a night and root for France mostly for my own safety but also because they were the home team and the under dogs. We watched the match at a bar called L'Atalante where they had an outdoor projection screen set up. It was really exciting and intense and it was only the quarter finals! Rugby is fairly easy to follow if you're a fan of American football. If you see a guy running really fast to his end with the ball/kick it really far to his end that means that they're going to score a goal (don't say touchdown or the French boy next to you who speaks perfect English will laugh at you). They even have an extra point kick after they score a "touchdown" (except its really 2 extra points). Don't ask me to explain why they sometimes pick each other up by the shorts. I'll never get that. Probably the coolest part of the game was at the beginning when they were trying to initimidate each other and the All Blacks did a Maori war dance that I remembered from my time in New Zealand. In any event Les Bleus a gagné so everyone went wild and sang the Marseillaise and chanted "Allez Les Bleus!" It was very exciting.

In other news, 2 of my new found friends had birthdays recently which were both really fun. And Sophia was here this weekend which was also really fun and will hopefully be happening a lot. Yesterday I moved into my sweet new pad and got my room (sort of) set up. Today I'm going to try to cook dinner in my new kitchen!

I guess that's it for now. I'll add pictures when the wifi gets worked out in my new place (this weekend supposedly). In the mean time Sophia's been able to add lots so check her blog for those! I'm so amped for Saturdays rugby match against Angleterre!! I'll keep you posted on the results!

First Day of Teaching

Yesterday was my first day of classes. The first 2 classes went really well. I just talked about myself for a couple minutes. (It's actually kind of hard to speak slowly enough and to not use slang or Americanisms). I told them about where I am from and they all got excited when I sang the theme song from Fresh Prince of Belair to remind them that Philadelphia is where Will Smith is from. Some of them asked such serious questions too! One very small boy in the 2nde (10th grade) was so brave and was asking questions like if I was for or against the death penalty. It was really adorable. They were also very interested in Paris Hilton and Las Vegas.
After these two really cute classes I had a super awkward experience. I went to my next class and, besides the teacher and me, there were only 2 girls in the class and the boys were a little rowdy. I was there maybe 10 minutes when the teacher started screaming at the students that she was ashamed of them. Then she turned very nicely to me and said "Thank-you very much, Sarah. See you next time."
The next 3 classes were much better. I had 2 that were pretty standard (except in one a girl demonstrated a dancing style called techtonique that is sort of like raving/pretending you're losing your balance) and one where we watched David Letterman's interview with Paris Hilton. It was really funny but the humor and vocab were kind of advanced so I was the only one laughing. (The teacher had left me alone with the students.) I think after watching it twice and having me explain the hard words they pretty much got it, though.
In other news, Sophia is coming tonight!! She came to St. Brieuc on Wednesday for our orientation but it wasn't super relaxed because she had to catch the train home at 10. Tonight she is going to stay over in a spare dorm room that is unlocked for some reason so we can faire la fête!
Also, I found a place to live!! It's a colocation with 3 french girls! I'm moving on Monday! We will have wi-fi! Hurrah!

I'm in the Teachers' Lounge!

So, turns out, I can access the ENTIRE Internet IF I hide in the Salle des Profs. Apparently the computers here are not restricted at all. I had been using the computers in the library before. One of the librarians told me today that if I wanted to use AIM (well she said messagerie or something like that) I should go into the Teachers' Lounge because the kids will get jealous if they see me chatting away. So, I came in and Voilà! access to the whole Internet! Very exciting!
Another very exciting piece of news: Today, Michael (the other assistant) and I got our teaching schedules and not only will I only be teaching 12 hours a week but I don't have any classes on Mondays or Fridays! What's up four day weekend!? Also, Tues.,Wed., and Thurs. I don't start 'til 10! Sounds good to me! We start Thursday and I'm actually less nervous about that then most of the other things I need to do because teaching will be completely in English.
Last night I met a bunch of other assistants, both German and American and apparently there are even more to meet. We have our stage (orientation) on Wed. for the whole département so maybe then I'll meet even more. Also, since Lannion is in the same département as St. Brieuc, Sophia will be coming to town Wednesday! In the mean time the assistants I met last night seemed really fun. I'm really excited to hang out with them more.
I'm still in the process of finding an apartment. There were lots of cheap apartments advertised in the Saturday paper so I just have to work up the courage to call and pray that they don't mind leasing for only 8ish months. That's all for now!