(no subject)
Life
Life goes on. I am being put in charge of more and more classes - of my 11 lessons per week, I now give 9 by myself, of which I have to plan 8 myself. It’s not too much work, but it’s more than I thought it would be really. In other news, Christmas lights have come on and Tours looks absolutely stunning - they spent a month putting them up, so it should do! For some reason, I volunteered to give a Gujarati lesson in French in the Languages Festival that’s taking place this weekend, which should be good fun. I am still bad at making French friends, but have somehow been extremely busy socially despite this. This week was particularly hectic: my family was still here on Monday so I had to amuse them as well as going to the weekly Cafe des langues to meet people and speak various languages. Tuesday evening I had nothing planned, amazingly. Wednesday was a games night at the local Games Institute, but I was too tired to go after my family visit and feeling a little under the weather. On Thursday, I went round to an English teacher’s house - she’s one of the people organising the Festival des Langues where I’ll be giving my Gujarati lesson - which was cool as it was the first time I was invited to a French person’s house. Friday I went to see a film with the normal friend circle. Saturday was my first Thanksgiving, Sunday a saxophone concert - so all in all, incredible busy.
My family’s visit went off better than expect: my family really enjoyed themselves and my dad annoyed us and complained about things less than usual. We went to the botanical gardens where I finally saw the bear, a huge local market where my sister bought me a gorgeous jumper, a galette place and a Vietnamese restaurant I like. I’ve been three times now and the owner has got to know me - she is an absolute angel, and would make going there worth it alone, even if the food weren’t delicious.
Thursday night round Mme Stamos’s (she’s the English teacher organising the Festival des Langues) was a nice, fairly quiet evening. There were five of us - me, two of my German friends, Mme Stamos, and Kelsoom, a beautiful Pakistani girl who really fascinates me. I’d already met her at the Cafe des Langues but we never had the chance to talk much before. There aren’t many Pakistanis in France at all, so I’d like to know more about her - I will probably see her again in the near future though.
My first Thanksgiving was probably not very American - we had chicken instead of Turkey, although somebody did make macaroni cheese. It was a completely fantastic evening though, and I had fun all the way from 7:30pm to 2am without getting bored once (rare for parties in my view). Nobody else from my friend circle came, and the four guests that I already knew there were more acquaintances than friends, so it was nice to get to know them better and also to meet a lot of new people, including finally meeting a number of French people of my age. In fact, it was a very mixed group - I think there were about twelve of us, but we managed six nationalities between us: French, American, Argentinean, English, Italian and Colombian. We ate, played games like Spoons (but with forks) and Werewolf (the first time I played in real life, and very good fun, even if it was a bit of a struggle in French!), and I was even forced to dance a little by peer pressure. Hopefully I’ll see some of the French people again; apparently they all come to the Cafe des langues regularly. Oh, another thing: a lot of Spanish was spoken that night as there were three Latin Americans, plus the Italian girl and one French boy who spoke fluent Spanish, and most people seemed to understand a fair bit. I don’t get the chance to listen to Spanish much, so it was nice for me, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I can now understand: testimony to the awesomeness of the Pimsleur language programme, I suppose.
Life goes on. I am being put in charge of more and more classes - of my 11 lessons per week, I now give 9 by myself, of which I have to plan 8 myself. It’s not too much work, but it’s more than I thought it would be really. In other news, Christmas lights have come on and Tours looks absolutely stunning - they spent a month putting them up, so it should do! For some reason, I volunteered to give a Gujarati lesson in French in the Languages Festival that’s taking place this weekend, which should be good fun. I am still bad at making French friends, but have somehow been extremely busy socially despite this. This week was particularly hectic: my family was still here on Monday so I had to amuse them as well as going to the weekly Cafe des langues to meet people and speak various languages. Tuesday evening I had nothing planned, amazingly. Wednesday was a games night at the local Games Institute, but I was too tired to go after my family visit and feeling a little under the weather. On Thursday, I went round to an English teacher’s house - she’s one of the people organising the Festival des Langues where I’ll be giving my Gujarati lesson - which was cool as it was the first time I was invited to a French person’s house. Friday I went to see a film with the normal friend circle. Saturday was my first Thanksgiving, Sunday a saxophone concert - so all in all, incredible busy.
My family’s visit went off better than expect: my family really enjoyed themselves and my dad annoyed us and complained about things less than usual. We went to the botanical gardens where I finally saw the bear, a huge local market where my sister bought me a gorgeous jumper, a galette place and a Vietnamese restaurant I like. I’ve been three times now and the owner has got to know me - she is an absolute angel, and would make going there worth it alone, even if the food weren’t delicious.
Thursday night round Mme Stamos’s (she’s the English teacher organising the Festival des Langues) was a nice, fairly quiet evening. There were five of us - me, two of my German friends, Mme Stamos, and Kelsoom, a beautiful Pakistani girl who really fascinates me. I’d already met her at the Cafe des Langues but we never had the chance to talk much before. There aren’t many Pakistanis in France at all, so I’d like to know more about her - I will probably see her again in the near future though.
My first Thanksgiving was probably not very American - we had chicken instead of Turkey, although somebody did make macaroni cheese. It was a completely fantastic evening though, and I had fun all the way from 7:30pm to 2am without getting bored once (rare for parties in my view). Nobody else from my friend circle came, and the four guests that I already knew there were more acquaintances than friends, so it was nice to get to know them better and also to meet a lot of new people, including finally meeting a number of French people of my age. In fact, it was a very mixed group - I think there were about twelve of us, but we managed six nationalities between us: French, American, Argentinean, English, Italian and Colombian. We ate, played games like Spoons (but with forks) and Werewolf (the first time I played in real life, and very good fun, even if it was a bit of a struggle in French!), and I was even forced to dance a little by peer pressure. Hopefully I’ll see some of the French people again; apparently they all come to the Cafe des langues regularly. Oh, another thing: a lot of Spanish was spoken that night as there were three Latin Americans, plus the Italian girl and one French boy who spoke fluent Spanish, and most people seemed to understand a fair bit. I don’t get the chance to listen to Spanish much, so it was nice for me, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I can now understand: testimony to the awesomeness of the Pimsleur language programme, I suppose.