In the last 48 hours, Rebecca has....

• Bought three goat cheese pizzas and eaten two. Also had Heather take pictures of me eating the pizza. (Yeah, we all know what I’m going to miss.)
• Bought a chocolate bar, a bag of nougat (it's a little different from what we know as nougat in the US; it's little white cubes of dough with peanuts in it, and damn, ( Read more... )

The town library has the first two Lord of the Rings movies but not the third one, which drove Marlene crazy. Fortunately the lycée library has the third one, so I checked it out yesterday and we stayed up until past midnight watching it. Marlene has a Ron-Weasley-like fear of spiders and had to cover her eyes every time the giant spider came on.

I ( Read more... )

The weather forecast on CNN International says that a cold front is moving across Europe, and believe me, Rebecca is feeling it. I don't think it's been this cold here since December, if ever. And I know it has never been this cold in Louisiana, at least not in my lifetime.

Snow was predicted for yesterday, which gave me fantasies of snowball fights ( Read more... )

What’s the only thing better than a nice cheesy episode of Walker, Texas Ranger? That same episode in French! I was eating in the kitchen earlier with Sarah, who was flipping around channels, when suddenly: "Sarah! Go back! I thought I just saw… Oh my God, it is! It’s Walker, Texas Ranger in French!" I only saw the last few minutes, but it was just ( Read more... )

Earlier this week, Heather, Nakeisha, Sarah, and I all simultaneously realized that we simply can't deal with dinners in the cantine anymore. (The M assistants, Marlene, Mariana, and Marina, are apparently smarter than us, because they reached this conclusion a long time ago.) I'm still going to be eating breakfast and lunch in the cantine, because ( Read more... )

Things that have pissed me off…

This afternoon I taught a new class for the first time, and they were easily the wost class I've had so far. They were a 2-class, so they didn't speak English very well, but rather than clam up like most of the 2-classes, they just decided to be loud and disruptive in French. The hour could not be over fast enough. ( Read more... )

Here are some details of my daily life here in France...

Breakfast here is my favorite meal of the day, because I always know exactly what I'm going to get. (Sometimes I can't identify what they serve for lunch and dinner, even after I've eaten it.) Breakfast is a stick of bread, an orange, a bowl of cereal, and a cup of orange juice. The cereal is ( Read more... )

I'm sorry that I haven't updated this journal lately, but I've been very busy. An assistant from Germany, Marlena, arrived on Thursday, and that evening, Corinne, one of the English teachers, invited me and Hanna, an American exchange student from Connecticut, to eat dinner at her apartment. She served us chicken and potatoes au gratin, salad, and ( Read more... )

Today was another day I spent walking around the town. Did I mention that an elderly couple who keeps chickens and geese lives just down the street from the school? I can sometimes hear their roosters crowing in the morning. They also have a German Shepherd named Leo (pronounced Lay-O); I know his name because he spends most of his time barking and ( Read more... )

I am going to try to update this journal every day until I get the hang of this keyboard.

I walked around the town a little today, and I found a small supermarket where I was able to buy most of the things I need. Not only do they not bag your groceries for you in France, but they don't even give you any bags. Fortunately I had forseen this and worn ( Read more... )