The Paris Round-Up
Somewhere in the middle of walking metro lines, the fact that I officially finished my job got lost in there. Well, a week ago Thursday was my last day of work. (I'm giving a English workshop, with a few other assistants, at another high school every morning this week. But since I'm just going to be reviving a bunch of old lessons, I'm not counting that as "work.") I feel like I should say something grand about the over-arching experience of teaching, but I think maybe it's equally telling that I don't have anything like that to say. The students might have learned something, might have gotten more comfortable speaking English... or they might not. Given how rarely I saw them, it's very hard to say. So, I am going to sum up some of my experiences in numbers instead. In my time in Paris - which isn't ending until May 7, so I'm reaching ahead for some of these - I will have had:
- 179 students of my own, plus ~30 students where I was in the classroom helping the teacher.
- At least 1 student who never showed up. So let's say I had 178.
- 264 hours of teaching, minus 4 days of transit strikes when I was stuck in Paris, and countless classes where nobody showed up. So make that 200 hours of teaching, and we'll call it even.
- 90 minutes on trains and 20 minutes on buses (or 30 minutes walking) each day I had to work. (Plus a bunch of buffer time so I wouldn't be late.)
- ~31 books read in French (including the one I'm currently reading... not including the one or two that I have waiting in the wings.)
- 171.5 km, or 106.6 miles, walked over the Paris metro lines, over the course of 44 days.
- 5 countries visited other than France - Germany, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain (will be visited starting on the 29th!).