Friday, Sept 28th.
I went to my school on Friday to meet some of the teachers and get tour. I was a bit annoyed at the fact that, once again, Sophie spoke very quickly in French to explain everything. She didn’t even ask if I would prefer French or English. Usually I try to understand as much French as I can and not worry about understanding everything, but today since I have never been here and want to know exactly whats going on it would have been best to do it all in English for the first day or two. And I was thinking maybe Sophie would be able to help me with some things like set up a bank account and maybe understand some paperwork...nope. She couldn’t be bothered to do such things. She made it very clear she is way to busy to help me. Pretty much the only really nice thing she did for me is she let me download Game of Thrones on my hard drive. They had it in English with French subtitles, so I at least had something to watch while I stayed at her place.  |
| Not one of my real lunches, but looks pretty much exactly like what my school would serve (same plates and cups even) |
So while I didn’t understand most of the people or what was really going on, I did learn one very important thing…the lunch at my school is pretty good. I ate lunch with Sophie on and they actually served salmon with a Hollindase sauce. You would never find anything like that in the US. Or even a real fish fillet for that matter. Maybe a fish sandwich or fish sticks, but I’m not sure how much real fish are in those. For only 3.10€ (which I believe is a special price they give just to assistants. I don't think even student lunches are that cheap) I got an appetizer (to be refereed to as an Entrée from now on, as the French do) a main plat that comes with a meat and 1-2 sides, cheese or yogurt, and a dessert or fruit (which they eat as dessert a lot), plus bread. I was totally stuffed after lunch and couldn’t even finish it all. I’ll be eating lunch here quite often. You can barely get a sandwich at some of the restaurants around here for less than 4€. If there is one thing I love about the French it’s they love to have lots of courses with a meal. And the students here get an hour for lunch, so they don’t have to scarf everything down like we do back home. Only thing I didn't like is when they don't serve ketchup or give extra salt at all. They say it's too unhealthy. Thankfully they alway tend to salt stuff enough. However I think the food is one of the only things I like more about French schools than US schools.
Many things don’t make sense to me, mostly their schedules. They have about the same amount of hours of classes as we do, but they don't have the same classes at the same times all through the week. They mix them around and maybe Monday they have Math at 9am then again on Thursday at 2pm for example. They also can have classes way longer than we do, but they might get an hour break some days or finish earlier or start later on others. It's not like in the Us where everyone goes to school all day from 8-3. They can have their classes anywhere from 8am-5pm. Some classes are 1 hour, some are 2 hours long. Some only meet every other week (weeks A and B) they call it. Plus the thing I just don't get most of all is the fact that teacher don't have 1 room they stay in all day and the students come to them like we do in the US. The teachers have to drag all their stuff with them to different rooms all day. They don't even get their own office like a college professor might, they have to keep all their stuff with them or in their tiny little mail box in the teacher lounge. There is a computer lab for teachers and they use those computers only. There isn't really even wifi for a teacher to bring their own laptop to work on. They aren't provided with any office supplies either at my school, so they buy all their own post-its, pens, tap, scissors, etc. The only thing out school give out is dry erase markers. Though I have heard of other school giving out stuff, so mine just might be cheap. Pretty much it seems like my school just gives teachers a room, a board, desks and chairs, and maybe a working computer (not always) and they expect them to just work with that. No wonder teacher strike so much over hear.
I guess it's just because things are so much different this time than the last time I was in France, but I found myself already crying and wanting to be back home after Sophie showed me around. She had a class to teach so we said we'd meet for lunch and I went for a walk in the park by the school called Parc Pasteur. I just started to feel very lonely, I guess also since Sophie hadn't been too welcoming. I just started to tear up because I wanted to to be there so bad. Things are completely different this time than last and I have already found myself getting overwhelmed. I have to do everything myself, where as last time I was in France my school organized any big meetings for me, I didn't have to have a French bank, I had a loving host family to go home to and eat dinners with. Even though I didn't have many friends and I mostly kept to myself I still left less lonely than this time so far. I just really need to meet the other assistants and hopefully make some friends. It's going to be a long lonely weekend once I move into the Foyer, then hopefully I'll meet some people when we have our orientation on Monday. For now I guess I try to talk to Matt more to keep from missing him as much. I would have never guess home sickness would have started this soon.
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