December 10, 2020

Thursday

An unexpected vacation day. Catherine alerted me that she wasn’t feeling well and would be staying home from school, eliminating two of my classes for the day. Mr. Ahaddout informed me that he would be staying home for a few weeks, eliminating another class. When I emailed Geraud for the morning plan he told me that I might as well stay home if I was only going to have one hour of class for the day. Fine by me!

The French school system is really different from our own. When teachers are gone for the day, there is no substitute called in to replace them. Students simply don’t have class. If there are multiple teachers gone, the kids don’t come to school. If a teacher is going to be gone for a long period of time, there might be a substitute called in so the students don’t fall too far behind.

I had originally hoped to use my refreshed bus card, however it quickly became apparent I was out of my depth with regards to public transit. My small town life has not prepared me to use public transit regularly. I avoided it like the plague in Ann Arbor because it made me so anxious to even consider. I would rather walk 40 minutes than figure out a bus transfer. So, my desk was covered with little bus schedules and I switched from app to app to try and find the best routes possible into the city and home.

I realized that trying to navigate the day of my trip was not the best idea. Instead, I decided I would plan a trial trip for the next day to the outlet mall I visited with Catherine a few weeks ago. The outing would require me to visit most of the same stations that a trip to Lyon would and it would ultimately be lower stakes if I got lost. I hoped to look over some books, some winter clothes, and to check out some restaurants around town.

Thursday ended up being a great rest day. My sense of taste started to come back. I can make out more flavors than I could before. I would liken the sensation to walking through a foggy town. You can vaguely make out that there are objects beyond you in the fog, but you can’t quite tell what they are. To celebrate, I made pancakes from scratch and ate them with some amazing maple syrup.

Next week I think I’ll talk about the holiday season in the United States with my students. If you are out and about in the coming days, please send me some pics of holiday decorations that I can share with the kids! If you decorate a tree or do the elf on the shelf, that might also be cool to share. Anything you can think of would be appreciated!