Stream of Consciousness...

Once upon a time, it was a gorgeous day and I was sitting on the little terrace of my apartment and life was perfect. The end.

Well, not so much the end. And perfect is a little bit strong. But things are damn good at this particular moment. :) I had two successful teaching days in a row where I actually TAUGHT lessons (although keep in mind that my measure of success is pretty low) and it's finally beautiful and somewhat warm again and I sorted out my Christmas break plans with the bro (Paris for 24 hours staying with my host family, back to Lyon to go see a soccer match, hanging out chez moi, and potentially a day trip to the Alps) and I bought my own soccer ball (finally!). So yes, I'm feeling good. :)

My lessons today and yesterday were alternately either about elections (because it's November and everyone loves Obama so why not give them some background on the crazy electoral voting process in the U.S. that I barely understand) or Thanksgiving (since I won't see some of my classes again until almost Christmas). I thought the election lesson was going to be super boring, but for some reason it worked! And the cutest part was that I started with having them listen to "The Star Spangled Banner" and fill in blanks in the lyrics and my last class today asked to listen to it again at the end so they could sing along. It was hilarious. And the Thanksgiving lesson went over pretty well too, although I taught it at 8:00 this morning and so have been craving turkey and stuffing since then... Oh! But the absolutely cutest part of my classes this week was when two boys (huge nerdbombers who are both pretty good in English) came up to me after class yesterday and asked to start writing to American pen pals. So if anyone knows some nice, dorky 14, 15, or 16-year-old boys who would want to and actually WOULD write to French students, let me know! I promised them addresses by next Tuesday...

What else? Not much. Monday and Tuesday are my kind of crappy, long days so I haven't been doing much besides teaching and lesson planning. I did go to Marie-Christine and Régis's house for dinner last night after babysitting. Speaking of babysitting, Rouquin, the crazy guinea pig, peed (and pooped, but c'est normal and it isn't quite as messy since it's just little pellets) all over the homework table last night and it was really kind of disgusting. Especially when Aurore and PE basically just swiped it up with some tissues kind of shoddily. Made me a lot more wary of leaning on and touching that table. And the soft spot in my heart for Rouqin seriously decreased. Anyway, dinner with the Frenchies was nice, but they continue to speak in English to me. Sigh. And Marie-Christine wanted to play Scrabble again, and even though I asked to play in French she insisted on playing in English. I have a sneaking suspicion that she won't play in French until she succeeds in beating me in English. Which sadly I don't think is going to happen... She's actually really good for someone playing in a second language, but she doesn't seem to realize that I spent the last two years of my life nerding out and playing Scrabble on Facebook ALL THE TIME. Maybe I'll just have to let her win eventually. I'm really curious to see if I'm any good at all in French. She says it's a lot easier because there are so many more little linking words. Maybe I'll just go out and buy my own Scrabble game so when she finally does play with me in French, I'll have been practicing and won't get completely annihilated!

Um, let's see. Oh! The other thing I meant to put in my blog about meeting up with Jean-Raphael on Saturday night was that at one point, Solène's husband asked about baseball and said he didn't understand it at all. So Solène started explaining it and drawing a diagram on a napkin, and I was dying trying not to laugh. In a good way. I mean, she had the basics, but she was drawing the field and said off-handedly that there were some bases around for people to run to and then she drew a bunch of bases all over the place. I had to interrupt and explain that there were in fact just three bases plus home plate and that they were set in very specific places. Maybe you had to be there, but it was cute. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to do any better if someone asked me to describe cricket or something else completely foreign to me. In fact, I have no idea what goes on in cricket at all...

Lastly, two not so perfect things. First, there are 4 cases of Grippe A (H1N1) at Collège Jean Perrin, the school I was at today and yesterday, and tons of the kids seem to be out sick. Knocking on wood and washing my hands and REALLY hoping I don't get it. Especially since I have yet to figure out how to find a médicin référent (primary care physician) and so would have no one to go to if I did get sick... And the second is that the man who lives in the apartment above mine has a serious coughing problem. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT WITHOUT FAIL, he proceeds to hack up his lung for a good hour while I'm trying to get to sleep. I'm actually kind of afraid he'll die one of these nights. Or one of his lungs will pop out and fly down the pipes into my bedroom... It's a really awful sound. I usually end up muttering in English at my ceiling telling him to go to a doctor and stop smoking (because chances are pretty good that he smokes) and dear god, FALL ASLEEP SO THAT I CAN. Last night, I seriously contemplated putting a note in his mailbox asking him to go get himself checked out. Or move to another apartment. Sigh. Gotta love the thin French walls. I suppose it could be a lot worse...

Off to go for a run and then hopefully test out my new soccer ball--yay!