You don't want me to come in tomorrow, you say? Oh, ok then, if you insist...

Welcome to the world of an assistant - come the end of term, no-one wants you! The kids are tired, the teachers are tired, I'm tired, and all people can think about is 5pm tomorrow evening when they don't have to see each other again for at least 2 weeks.

This week I had no school in La Rochelle because I did double-hours last week, I was taken home from Courcon at 1pm today instead of 5pm, and got a text from my responsable in Surgeres saying that I needn't bother going in tomorrow - WIN!

Saying that, my suitcase is packed, i've raided iPlayer for all good shows and my house is currently having severe and frequent power cuts due to my French dad messing around with the electrics. I've read all the books I have here and I'm not even going near my Special Study until after the holidays.

So... I'm tempted to recap this term... but I think I've blogged most of what has happened. It's definitely been interesting. Horrible in parts but people and places have redeemed the crappiness that ocurred in the first month or so. I've had some awesome experiences and already feel like it's going to be difficult to tear myself away from my little house and my little French family. But i've got the next 4 months to worry about that :)

I'm off home on Saturday; I'm hoping and praying that the journey to Bordeaux airport will be hassle-free and that the snow doesn't hinder our journey - also getting worried about BA strikes... gahhhhh... but i'm trying to be positive and get in the Christmas spirit, even though all I want to do is go home right now! I'm loking forward to getting home to my family and my boyfriend (after a term if 7 weeks it gets DIFFICULT!), 'real' food (although I'm positive my French family would disagree with that!), my bed, my cat and the fact that it's CHRISTMAS :D

It's also amusing, in a small way, that there are a lot less 'Merry Christmas' signs and a lot more 'Happy Holidays'... and the French refuse to acknowledge America's influence... as one of my classes always reminds me "C'est un état LAIQUE!!!" :D

Bref, Joyeux Noel a tous!!! Joyeuses fetes and all that jazz :)

It's been a while!

I've neglected this blog for far too long!!!!!

Work has been quite steady, not boring as such but the kids are already starting to get antsy and definitely ready for the end of term.
I went to Paris for Lindsay and Fran's birthday celebration - my first time in Paris - I couldn't believe the price of things! There was a problem with my hostel room so i ended up staying at Jack's (and Jamie's, but he wasn't there!) for the night. I spent the afternoon watching the rugby with some other Bath students who were in Paris, Gina, Emma and Rebecca, then met the girls later on for a celebration in Bastille! It however tipped it down and it took us nearly 30 minutes to find a taxi!
The only downside to the weekend was the infrequency of Sunday transport - our metro back to Montparnasse usefully stopped a long way from the station, so instead of clambering onto the bus with the other 200 disappointed passangers, we got a taxi... which took FOREVER. I made my train however, unlike the people who chose to get the bus (ha!), but it was delayed at Niort, meaning I'd missed the last bus back to Angoulins... then I endured an hour's wait for the last train... then a 15 minute walk in the rain to my house... I was definitely ready for bed, and not ready for work at 7am the next morning!

Work that week was ok, lessons I'd planned went fine etc... I'm still slightly resentful that my Friday school gave me a class of year 10s to myself during the last period, 16.30-17.30 = NIGHTMARE. But I plan around their excitement and they've learnt that Rebecca DOES shout and get annoyed!

Last weekend, Caroline and I were invited to Francegiving, a big Thanksgiving house party and dinner for all the Frenchies and Americans (and 3 token 'others - me, a German and a New Zealander!) that the host, Marcus, knows. It was so nice to see what a traditional (ish) Thanksgiving would be like - I ate SO much food! We drank lots of good wine, demolished more food and watched the France vs New Zealand rugby match... I forgot how riled I get about rugby when I'm around people who are also passionate about it! We got a taxi home in the early hours and slept off our food hangover the next day :)




This past week has been fruitful in places - I recieved 2 CAF payments, meaning I get half of my rent reimbursed every week - BRILLIANT! :D
Monday, I went to La Rochelle and stocked up on teabags from the big supermarket, and bought some new jumpers so that I can face the 'fierce' winter! Hardly fierce compared to the UK, as we're on the coast, but bless my 'parents' for caring.
I've been working on my special study, worked Thursday, and got sent home from work on Friday due to feeling like death warmed up.
After a good night's sleep, Saturday passed nicely. Caroline and I seemed to have finally worked past all cultural/family differences that we had with our 'parents and this weekend has been very restorative; we did things we used to do when we'd just moved in, such as going to the market and going to buy bread - simple things but so nice. Yesterday, I went to see a Christmas-time gospel choir with one of my teachers, Isabelle, and her daughter. She then took me back to her house and we ate raclette and watched Miss France with her 3 daughters... the commentary consisted of "Elle est moche... elle est moche.... elle est pas belle du tout... encore moche..."

We had a big Sunday lunch with the 'parents' and the 'grandparents' and have spent the day eating Jaffa Cakes and drinking tea :)
I've got 4 full days of teaching this week (which means I've got a 5 day weekend again later on in the week!) but it shouldn't be too bad :)

Also, just to end with a nice anecdote... On Thursday I looked at the register and there was a girl called Megan's. Yes, Megan's, with an apostrophe. I asked Isabelle why she was called that, and she told me:
"Oh, I asked that on her first day here - I asked her why someone had spelt her name wrong... in fact it turned out that her parents named her after where they met - Megan's Nightclub..."
Only en France!!!!!

Disregard for disability...

This week has been pretty good... I made the most of my 5 day weekend, I saw a friend from uni, I planned my classes, I swam a lot... though 5 days off was very bizarre. Only 30 days left until I come home! Also, I’ve only had about 50% of the reimbursements that I have been due since mid October, not impressed. Though this is France, which seems to be a resounding excuse for poor company practise here! There’s also a strike for secondary schools (from what I can gather) next Tuesday!

So, to the gist of the title. Here are some statements from various teachers in my schools, about handicapped children and pupils with learning difficulties, translated from the French:

“Oh, don’t mind him; he’s just a stupid annoying child who has problems”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, we have a (raises voice) heavily disabled child in this class, I hope that doesn’t bother you”

“Don’t sit like that – what are you, a SEGPA?” (SEGPA is the name of the learning difficulties department of each school)

“They’re just all stupid and slow, they can’t help it”

“She’s got a speech impediment; just ignore her if you don’t understand her”

I honestly cannot believe the intensely rude attitude towards handicapped children! I work 2 hours a week with two 6e classes, both of which have mild learning difficulties (in my ZEP school too, meaning they are already ‘difficult’ children) – most teachers i know would make allowances, but teachers I’ve met here treat them like second class citizens who they have the liberty to laugh at...

There are 2 kids in wheelchairs, who are just as capable and intelligent, if not more willing to learn than the other kids – but the teachers make a spectacle out of them sometimes... I don’t know if I’ve just stumbled across a few bad attitudes.

And on a light note... some brilliant mistakes I heard today:

To translate “Je suis revenue” (I came back), a year 10 translated it as “I am income”... the misguided use of dictionaries amuses me! Also “J’ai été” (I was) became “I have summer”

“Ride a horse”, written by a year 7 as “Reit e hos” :)

Bless them...

Becoming a vraie Rochelaise!

Well, after a lovely week at home (well, I was with the boyfriend for the most part), I am suprisingly sad to be back in France! I spent a few days with my family in Tewkesbury then went to visit my boyfriend who is working in Catterick on the army base - such a surreal experience to be one of only a handful of females on the biggest army base in the country!!!

I must say, walking up the road after coming back to la belle France to see my nice warm house was a soul-warming feeling but I've had a bit of a rubbish day today! I think my body gets very worried by travelling lots and changes in environment and it feels like i've got a lot of 'going-back-to-school' chores to do... On the plus side, I recieved information about my CAF payments today, got confirmation of my Erasmus grant payments and got some exciting news about a house in Bath; but I still have a headache.
But even though being back here sucks in so far that I now have to get back to work, I feel like i'm slowly becoming more and more French, excusing the rubbish administration systems and becoming oblivious to the lack of proper manners! On the train and bus home from Bordeaux, I felt like i fitted in amongst the stone-faced passengers with their glares at anyone who dared play their ipod slightly too loud! I think, however, at the risk of sounding stereotypical about the French people of a certain age, that I am in fact too optimistic to ever turn into a grumpy old French woman who complains about where they lives despite its beauty and vibrancy! :)



So, in order to remedy this ill feeling, I went shopping!!! Now, most people would think this a fun, exciting thing to do, but oh no - not in La Rochelle. Known to locals as 'The Western Paris', you can see how it gets its nickname...

There are hardly ANY well known shops, and if there are, they are all incredibly expensive boutiques or designer shops, far and beyond the budget of my student loan and British Council salary! There are NO large chain clothes stores; the closest to this description is Pimkie, which is huge in France and probably closely resembles New Look in England. All other shops in the town are crepe stands and patisseries (which i'm not complaining about, I hasten to add!), over-priced boutiques for the older lady, jewellery shops andsmall cavernous bars.

Property over here is ridiculous. To rent a furnished room in a student centre-ville flat works out at over 500 euros per month, rivaling Parisian prices! Yes, the buildings ARE lovely, but houses even in the periphérie are extortionate. After being invited to a teacher's house for lunch last week, I saw a typical town house... yes, it was beautiful but everything in it was so minimalist and bare because the rent was so high! This is the reason I live 'far away' from the centre of La Rochelle - only about 5 kilometres, I have to get a bus, but the rent is stupidly cheap in the surrounding villages. Houses around here are very cheap but VERY run down, as they are properly rural and mostly falling apart unless you have the serious money needed to renovate them; for example, nosing around the local estate agents I saw:
"MAISON ANGOULINS BOURG, 5 PIECES. Pavillon de plain-pied en très bon état, comprenant : Entrée, salon/séjour avec cheminée et insert, cuisine aménagée et équipée, cinq chambres, salle d’eau, wc. Terrasse, garage, dépendances, jardin, puits."
All this, only 100m from the sea, in the centre of the village, for just over 200,000 euros.... utterly ridiculous.

I may complain and the locals may get on their high-horses about prices and housing and the weather, yet despite all this, I defy anyone not to instantly fall in love with this city, its surroundings and its beautiful charms... :)

HOLIDAYYYY!!!

The French deem in necessary to give the kiddies 2 weeks holiday because it's Halloween, so I'm not going to complain! I'm off home tomorrow so i'll be back on here upon my return! :)

My first experience of French healthcare!

After feeling ill most of the weekend, Monday was certainly interesting.... I dragged myself into work for 4 hours on Monday morning (mainly because taking a day off means far too much paperwork!), meaning I got on a bus at 6.55am and was already halfway through a lesson before I saw the sun coming up! I battled on through until midi, then collapsed onto the bus home. It was decided that I needed to go to the doctors surgery. The nearest doctor is in the next town down the coast, Chatelaillon-Plage... and this is what got me - every afternoon, it's like British A&E, a total free-for-all, turn up when you feel like it and wait in line for see the doctor without-an-appointment sort of thing! So we got there, there were about 8 old people sat around waiting, who all jumped up when the doctor came out to see the next person in the queue. What did amuse me was that one man tried to convince the man sat next to him, who was in front of him turn-wise, that his illness was worse than his and that 'would he be so kind as to let him go first as it's really quite urgent'.... oh the French do make me laugh, even trying to cut corners in the doctors!

We arrived at about 4pm and waited, whilst watching terrible "surgery TV", until 7pm to see a bloody doctor. In addition to this, there was no receptionist, just benches to sit on and 2 doors that led to examination rooms. The doctor was lovely and helped me fill out all my documents (as I don't have my Carte Vitale yet, the obligatory card to show for social security reimboursements - it gets delivered to you around 3 months after first signing up to the Sécu, ridiculous! So I have paper documents in the mean time) and gave me a prescription. The only problem being that pharmacies in France close at 7pm, some at 7.30pm if you're lucky - so my French dad came to pick me up, and drove me to Salles-sur-Mer, about 10km away, to the nearest late night pharmacy! Then, at the pharmacy, they were shocked and stupified when I said I didn't have my Carte Vitale... so it took about 20 minutes to find all the stuff, input codes into the system etc etc etc....

But all in all, it was a very thorough (albeit long and painful) process... I had to pay 22 EUROS to see the doctor but that will be fully reimboursed thanks to the Sécu and my top-up mutuelle insurance. But now I know what Hélene meant in the briefing talks of "writing the thing in the thing and the putting the thing in the thing, then posting the things to the thing and waiting for the people to sign the thing and then getting the thing back"....

I'm now taking the medication like a good girl and am feeling a lot better. We were due to go to the 2nd Induction day in Poitiers yesterday, but conveniently the SNCF decided to strike! There were suitable replacement buses and a few trains still running, but we decided to adopt the French attitude and declare that "c'est pas la peine!"... I've got school tomorrow, then Friday off - Surgeres has a big sports day, hence no lessons - so instead i'm going to meet up with my first French exchange partner who lives close to La Rochelle; it'll be nearly 7 years since we saw each other, she's now married and has a baby! Strange, huh? Then a weekend of not doing a lot and then home time.... I love being a teacher sometimes!

Bloody Scottish...!

I'll explain the title of this post in due course :)

So, just a small update about this week. I went to my La Rochelle school for the first time this week - it's amazing! It's so modern, pretty much all brand new, with a brand new gym, pool, playing fields and everything! I met 3 classes, a 5e and 2 6e classes, one of which had learning difficulties, so we spent the entire hour covering how to say "Hello, I'm [insert name here]. How are you?"... "I'm fine thankyou", and some of the accents were pretty much incomprehensible!


Everyone was lovely, until I went to the staff room at break time and met one of the other English teachers, one who I wouldn't be working with. "Hi, I'm *******, pleased to meet you, if you hadn't guessed, I'm not English, I'm Scots. Nope, not Scottish as most people think - it's only the uneducated fake bastards who call themselves Scottish and not Scots as we truly are..." This put my back up instantly.

He then proceeded to talk to me about my placement, and his side of the conversation went along these lines: "You're placed in THOSE 3 schools? God, I have a car and I wouldn't want to be travelling out to those shit-holes. This is gonna be a tough year for you kid, no joke. The last assistant nearly got kicked out by December for being useless, so watch your back if you want to stay here. *sighs* God, I wouldn't like to be in your situation. Good luck kid, you're going to need it..."

I did NOT need this sort of doubt about my role first thing on a Monday morning! Contrary to his (rubbish) opinions, I am currently coping very well with my transport situations, I like all my schools and am actually passionate about what I'm going to be doing, unlike your last assistant. I wanted to get up onto a chair and declare to everyone that I am here to break their preconceptions about the last assistant and be an invaluable resource for the kids and the teachers. Everyone else has been so helpful, then along comes one teacher I'm not even going to be helping to tell me that he already has ideas about language assistants and how difficult I'm going to find it. I'm perfectly aware that a lot of this year is going to be hard but I've accepted that and will deal with the problems when they arise!

Sorry about that. Other than that, this week has been alright, apart from falling ill on Thursday, and choosing to go into work and show willing rather than fill out ALL the paperwork in order to take sick leave... But i'm resting this weekend in order to get better for a packed pre-Toussaint holidays week! On another positive note, I have finally decided what to do for my Special Study and will begin research after the holidays :)