Mary-Est-En-France

Wednesday

We love a good day off!

Mme Bodet took me to my appointment for a transit card this morning. I got it set up, so now I can stop paying for tickets every time I get on the bus! So so happy.

Because we were already in Crémieu for the appointment, we zipped over to the Les Halles to see the farmer’s market. I’m bummed I had no clue that this was right down the street when I was in my Airbnb. It was awesome. There were so many local vendors selling a wide range of fresh products. Seafood, meat, veggies, and flowers. You could just picture people meeting here to buy their food over the course of centuries.

I needed to buy a lot of products for the new place, so we headed down the road to Carrefour. I was able to get all the essentials, some spices, some rags for cleaning, and more. It was expensive, but moving always is. We headed home and Mme Bodet insisted that I’d be coming over for dinner. She told me she didn’t want me to be alone all the time because I would get lonely. I just thought that was so sweet. I told her I’d be back at 7:30 to eat with the family.

I took a super long nap before heading out for a brisk walk!

I walked through some local neighborhoods. Mme Bodet had complained there wasn’t any style in local houses because they were all constructed at the same time. Sounds like a lot of suburbs back home.

I returned to my apartment to work on essays before dinner at 7:30.

I walked across the street to eat with the Bodets. We had roasted butternut squash, roasted duck, and a baked banana dish. After dinner I had some black tea with Daniel and Mme Bodet. We watched the news together for a while before I went home. I noticed that on French TV there aren’t ads for medicines. I asked Mme Bodet and learned that advertising drugs on TV is actually illegal in France, as well as ads for beer and tobacco products.

Tuesday

I felt like a kid again as I climbed into Madame Bodet’s car with her son and his friend in the backseat on our way to school. As we took the quick drive through the countryside, I admired the rolling hills and fields.

I arrived and went straight to Viri’s classroom. To my surprise, she had divided the class so I could take half of them. Having a smaller group makes it much easier for me to get their attention and to address questions. My lesson for the day was about heroes, as the students had been working on them throughout the week. I know that Marvel movies have made American superheroes easily identifiable around the world, so I decided to teach about some American folk heroes instead. My slides started with Superman and Wonder Woman as a warmup activity, then the goal was to discuss Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Johnny Appleseed.

My first class really struggled. When we got settled in our new room, I asked them, “How are you?” They responded with blank stares. That certainly did not bode well for the rest of the lesson! Instead of going in-depth with the characters, I focused on easier “popcorn” answers. For example, I had a picture of Superman on the starter slide and I asked them what colors were in his outfit. They were able to shout them out and work on pronunciation together. Viri told me after class they had been completely lost.

My second class really enjoyed the lesson and breezed through it. I let them sit with their friends, but told them I would separate them if they got too rowdy. Luckily I didn’t have to. I did make sure to explain my “mask over the nose” policy. I told them it was extremely rude in the US to show your nose and that it was similar to wearing just your underwear in public (they don’t need to know about the anti-mask movement). All of them put their nose on correctly immediately afterward! I was able to teach the class about Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, and John Henry. One boy realized I didn’t know the word for seed in French, so I asked him to come write the word on the board. He was thrilled. He told me that he would teach me one new French word per class. I thought that was a pretty good trade! When his group passed me in the hall later he made sure to quiz me. The word is “pépin” when you’re referring to a fruit seed.

My third class was the worst of the day. They didn’t really care about speaking in English. It seemed like they understood what I was saying, but they didn’t want to engage. It was hard to get through the content because the boys in the back kept cracking jokes with each other. There were so many naughty kids it was impossible to separate them. Some kids refused to speak no matter how easy a question I asked. I was sooo relieved to when class ended.

The differences in comprehension levels on Tuesday are frustrating. All the students are in the same grade, but some of them can’t form a one word answer to a question. There is no way that all three classes are going to get the same content this year.

I got to ride back to Anthon with Mme Bodet at 12. She invited me over for lunch with her and her husband. We ate chicken, rice, salad, and fried potatoes.

I spent the rest of the night writing essays for law school before I met with my advisor. He confirmed I was ready to submit and I got half of my applications in last night! I’m so excited! Hopefully I can finish the rest by Friday.

I got to end the night with a call with some friends. Perfect!

Monday

I think I’m getting the hang of this! Today I had five different classes.

I started with Corinne’s 3ème (8th grade) group. They were not enthusiastic and their English skills were about as low as some of the 6ème groups. We identified states, parts of Michigan, and I shared some details about my life. Some of the boys think they’re too cool to be learning English. Peak angsty energy.

Corinne’s second 3ème class was great. Some of the euro kids are in there, so conversation went really smoothly and we were able to practice for their upcoming oral quiz. They are using detective stories to learn how to ask questions in English. Corinne gave us some phrases and together, we created a detective story! The kids decided that Mr. had been pushed out a window while the students made pancakes and that one of their classmates had been seen exiting the room. As class ended, they voted to convict her! Quelle drâme!

The cantine offered chicken with gravy over potatoes and mushrooms. I thought it was really good! For dessert there was a little cream pastry. I was a little late because I had stayed to talk with Corinne about the morning classes, but I still made it out to Green Club. We spent more time planting bulbs this afternoon. My group struggled because our shovel broke!

After lunch I had one 6ème class with Corinne. This group is super enthusiastic and they’re a joy to work with. We learned more about Michigan together. They used the same powerpoint as the first 3ème group and did a lot better with it.

My last class of the day is the euro group. They are very good at speaking only in English. All of them are very excited to talk every week. Christel asked that I prepare a lesson on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It was really hard for the kids to understand. We watched a video and tried to talk it out, but with less than an hour together I think it was just really ambitious. Apparently, the kids will be working online with Italian and Spanish students on a final project concerning these goals which should be super beneficial for them!

Mme Bodet came to take me home and she invited me over for a snack and dinner later on. We had crêpes with Nutella and a water. I went back to my house until dinner at 7:30 (I was starving!!) Her husband Daniel made risotto and chicken. It was really tasty. Their son is in one of my classes, so they quizzed him about class today and told him to “profite-bien!” from my being here. They encouraged him to make a list of questions for me with his friends so we could talk about them in class. We talked about Thanksgiving, traveling and using other languages, and the differences between American TV and French TV. After dinner we watched the news together and had tea before I came home to write lessons.

Tomorrow I am teaching about heroes.

Sunday

I woke up early to start cleaning my Airbnb from top to bottom. Today was moving day. I did the dishes, took out the trash, stripped the bed, packed my bags, and wiped down all the surfaces. Then I sat down to wait. With about an hour to go, I texted my ride to confirm she’d be arriving at 10 when I had arranged to deliver the keys. The minutes ticked by with no response. I began to worry, was she even awake? I sent her an email, to no avail. I was practically sweating by 9:30. I watched the clock until I heard a knock at the door. Opening it, I discovered the owner of the Airbnb and my ride standing a few feet away. The Airbnb owner resembled a scary French professor to an alarming degree, so I always felt on edge near her. She thanked me for the keys and said goodbye as I loaded my bags into Anne’s car.

We zipped through the countryside and I learned about all the services she was willing to help me with. I get one load of laundry a week, fresh towels, rides to the supermarket whenever she goes, trash service, and rides to Lyon if needed. She helped me get into the little apartment and her husband helped grease the lock so it would actually function. They left me to unpack before lunch.

I was invited for lunch with Madame Bodet and her family at 12:15. I thought Anne would be coming, but she did not. I found out Mme Bodet had worked in South Carolina and lived there for 4 years. She loved the US and had been able to travel to many of the national parks during her tenure. We got to talk about the US election, the school system, and I got to know her husband Daniel who is from Madagascar. They have a small vacation home there that they rent out when they are not using it. Mme Bodet took me for a walk around the village. She seemed to know everyone that we saw outside. I learned there are 1,000 people living in Anthon. She lives across the street from her brother and his family. At the end of the walk we agreed that she would take me to work the next day at 9:30. Perfect timing!

Tonight I have a few calls and I’ll be working on drafts of law school statements.

Saturday

I feel like weekends here should be the most exciting times, but so far they haven’t been. I end up spending about 72 hours completely alone with the exception of an hour or two for Facetime calls. Though I certainly appreciate the time to rest, confinement makes me wish that I had a friend here to sit and chat with. It can be really difficult and isolating to know that for the majority of your day, no one that you know or care for is even awake.

I did want to do something special with my last hour of outside time in Crémieu. The sky was absolutely stunning, so I hiked up Mt. Hippolytes to the ramparts to take some pictures. I listened to a podcast about COVID and then one about election results while I hiked. There were beautiful, soft leaves underfoot and little birds overhead.

I wanted to walk outside of the back of the ramparts and around to the front in a new area I hadn’t seen before, but much to my surprise I discovered they sat on the edge of a cliff! Not really an option to hike around the back! There was an absolutely breathtaking view of the valley though and I stood to enjoy it for a few minutes.

I walked back in and through to the front to capture a picture of the rolling countryside beyond the little village.

I headed back down the trail as my hour ran out.

I spent the rest of the day contemplating essays and watching bad TV. I did finally get my cookies from the store which was great.

Friday

Wow! I can’t believe that I’ve finished my second week teaching and it actually went smoothly! I think I can do this, guys.

Today I worked on some lesson plans for Monday. My 3ème euro students (the most advanced class) will be working on the UN Goals for Sustainable Development on Monday. We’re watching a video together before discussing which goals they think are the most important and which ones they feel they can actively contribute to. I’m so excited to talk about how they see the future and how they want to make a difference!

I spent the rest of the day on law school essays. Not the most glamorous, I know, but I’m really motivated to get these done by next Friday! I have a fun book picked out for the day I’m done that I’m really excited to burn through.

Big bummer, I wanted to buy some cookies tonight and discovered it was after 19:00 and it was illegal to go outside. I’ll have to be content with wine and pasta for the evening. Hoping tomorrow is nice outside so I can go for a good last hike in Crémieu before I move on Sunday morning!

Thursday

Started my day at 6am with some caramel coffee. Anyone else hate mornings no matter their caffeine level?

My coworker had agreed to drive me to Charvieu for Thursday classes, so I walked over to the L’isle aux enfants (a kindergarten) to get picked up. I got to watch the sun come up over the horizon. On the car ride to work I got to know Géraud and his wife. They met in Scotland on their study abroad in college! So cute.

I started my day with the 4ème (7th grade) kids. The class was split in half so I had two groups of 15 for about 25 minutes each. They were great. I started class by telling them I had three rules: don’t talk while others are talking, know that everyone is required to speak a minimum of 1 sentence of English per class (more is preferred), and I refuse to yell over loud students so I’ll stand and wait for them to quiet down. It worked really well! When they got rowdy, other students policed the loud ones and I didn’t have to do anything. I got them more comfortable and engaged as we went on. They loved having pictures on the slides and getting to guess the French equivalent to new English words!

There was the morning break for about 20 minutes. I went down to the teacher’s lounge where we all had coffee together while the students played outside.

Classes started up again and I had two hours with Catherine’s class of 5ème (6th grade) students. I had about 16 kids for an hour before getting the second half. She had me rate the kids red, yellow, or green for behavior so she’d know who would be allowed to come back to work with me in following weeks. Both groups were pretty good. I was feeling more confident, so I separated the two groups of boys. It went super well! Everyone spoke at least twice during class and I was keeping them on task!

I had a nice hour for lunch alone before I moved out of the classroom and went down to hangout in the staff room while I waited for Géraud to be done for the day.

I met with the principal in the afternoon and learned she is close friends with my soon-to-be neighbor. I got to know a little bit about the area and was invited to join the rest of the staff on future bar nights. She told me that if I wanted to, I could join her family for Christmas. Pretty cool!

I rode home with Géraud and his wife. She works at the local elementary school and also teaches English! Students as young as 6 years old are already learning their numbers, simple phrases, and songs in English. I thought that was so cool. They insisted French foreign language programming was bad, but wow- if they knew about the language programming in the US they’d be horrified.

I spent the rest of the night sleeping and recovering. It’s tiring to work with kids!

Wednesday

Love my days off! I slept in, did some chores, and got ready for the day. I found out that one of my corworkers was going to give me a ride to work tomorrow, so I decided to take out the trash and make a practice run over there to make sure I could find it.

After finding the address, I decided to use the rest of my allotted time outside to go for a walk through some new neighborhoods in Crémieu while I could. I wandered for a while before finding my way on the edge of the village. In the distance, much to my surprise, I saw what looked like a castle!

I had some time left… so I wandered over.

I kept walking up around the hill and discovered I had left Crémieu behind me! Whoops! I didn’t realize I had gone so far in search of the steeple. It turns out that it belonged to the church of Villemoirieu!

Across the street from the church there was a memorial to the soldiers of WWI from the village.

I also found the town hall!

As I wandered out of town to circle back to Crémieu, I actually found a real life castle!

I continued on my way and found another country château!

I spent the rest of the night writing presentations for my classes tomorrow. I had to laugh, one was about sports and I know absolutely nothing about sports. Let’s hope the kids ask questions I can easily Google haha.

Tuesday

Today is my day with difficult classes. I don’t know why, but all the classes on Tuesday are out of control. These students yell across the room, don’t wear their masks correctly, and don’t speak in English when asked. Working with them feels like trying to run through molasses. I’m not sure what to do, I hope it will easier. All my other teachers want me to take half the class and work alone with them, but this teacher wants to me to work with the entire class at one time while she is there. It is helpful to some extent, because their English is bad. She can explain things in French. However, I do wonder if they would be more manageable if I could only have half them though. For some reason, she has all the troublemakers sitting together. In the US, they would be separated so they couldn’t make noise together, but not here.

My first class I had worked with yesterday, so we did a new presentation about Halloween. They had a lot of fun learning about costumes. I hadn’t expected to work with the whole class, so my lesson only last half the class and I had to stall for 20 minutes. Very awkward.

My second and third classes learned about the 4th of July and American independence. These were the two naughtiest classes. My throat hurts from having to talk about them and from having to ask them to be quiet so often.

I was so thankful to leave for the day, I was drained. I was worried as I waited for the bus, it took 30 minutes longer to come today than it did last week. The woman running the bus lectured me about needing a card because it would be less expensive, but wouldn’t listen when I said I had an appointment to buy one for next Wednesday. I had to walk from the bus stop home and saw some cool things though.

I fell asleep for a few hours. In the evening I walked my trash to the receptacles at the end of the road. Then I went and bought a fresh baguette “flûte,” some milk, wine, and cheese. I am spending the night practicing French, writing law school essay drafts, and then talking with friends on the phone.

Monday

My second week in schools! I felt a lot more confident as I started the day. I had my basic routine down. Make my double coffee, eggs, and apple for breakfast. Shower, find an outfit, match my mask, and head out the door. I made it to the bus stop early and was able to listen to my favorite podcast while I waited. I’ve finally figured out how much a bus ticket costs (3.40 euros) so I was able to hop on with ease.

I got to school at 9am so I could take care of hiring paperwork and print out my worksheets. The teacher I was supposed to work with was absent because she was in contact with someone who had COVID, so I didn’t see her classes. Instead, I worked with another teacher’s 5ème classes for two hours. They were super rowdy. We had to yell over them and it was really difficult to get them through the presentation I had prepared. One girl that I met the week before made my day when she presented me with an acrostic poem of my name in English. See below.

I ate with Christel at lunch. There was yogurt, a choice of fruit, the main plate was meatballs and vegetables, and bread. After we ate we went to work with the garden club. The kids were clearing land for the garden and planting bulbs. They seemed to really enjoy it. We all wore high rubber boots because the ground was muddy.

After lunch, I would usually be in another English class. However, I spent the hour with a 6ème French language class. The kids were starting to read the Harry Potter books. They were all extremely excited, because they were being sorted into houses or “les familles” that afternoon. Only one boy got a house he didn’t like, but his housemates cheered him up by nominating him for “house master.” The teacher invited me back for other classes if I was interested. I think I might try to find a copy of Harry Potter so I can read with them.

I visited another new class after this one. It was a 3ème English class. I couldn’t get my presentation to open because of poor cell service, so it was an uphill battle. They did not care about speaking in English. There were two boys who refused to be quiet the entire lesson. It was so frustrating because they were distracting others. I felt like I was having to force people to participate. We went through information about Michigan and the United States together, but there was still a lot of time left. I tried to teach them about American politics, but I don’t think they fully understood. It was difficult, because I am not allowed to speak French with the students, but I also don’t know how much English they actually know.

Finally the end of the day, I had the kids from the 3ème euro class who are the best in the school. We split the group and we introduced Michigan and the 4th of July. It was so much easier to talk with them. Just having a smaller group made things so much more manageable. The children could hear each other and they could help each other with English language formation. I really preferred this. We had time for them to ask extra questions and to get to know each other better. It was a good way to end the day.

Mme Petit picked me up from school to go to see the apartment she was offering. This place was in Anthon, which is somehow smaller than Crémieu. I actually thought it was a good deal 400 euros a month including wifi, utilities and occasional rides to school. They are a retired couple with a huge house on the river and the area I am going to be living in was an apartment where her mother stayed in the last years of her life. I am worried because the town is so small. I hope I will be able to travel to Lyon after confinement. Hopefully having a place will allow me to open a bank account more easily.

I was so exhausted when I arrived back at the apartment I fell asleep for a few hours, made pasta, and went to bed.