In the French Classroom

As promised, segment two of my updates...

Saturday, March 22^nd

Getting really nervous and uptight about going to the Graber’s – both because I don’t really know what to expect teaching wise and I don’t know how the youngest will react to me again. Anyways, trying to relax as much as possible – we watched Frozen today – Jill and Patrick got it on their Amazon Prime account. I was as impressed as I had expected to be from what I had heard about it. It was so refreshing to see a princess movie that was about more than just romance. I think one of the most poignant aspects (for me) was how fear can become a hindrance in so many ways – shutting people out, even though it is because you want to protect them; suppressing your emotions (again, out of fear) rather than acknowledging them and learning to let them go usually causes them to explode in many harmful ways; Love is so much more powerful if you trust it (and, again, it doesn’t have to be romantic love); differences in life experience and reality affects how someone goes about trying to do the ‘right’ thing (so much more realistic than the typical Good .vs Evil storyline); and so many more things. If you haven’t seen the movie, I really would recommend it. It just feels much more wholesome than many movies I have seen in this genre (now, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the older princess movies – it’s just refreshing to see a positive change).

Sunday, March 23^rd

At Clémence’s. Ok, whooo, relax. Everything will go well. After this week you will be done and will probably never see these people (other than the Graber’s) again, so if you screw up royally, it doesn’t matter. Yeah, that doesn’t help. Clémence will be taking the youngest to her day care person every morning, so at least I don’t have to worry about that – just getting the other two to school on time. We looked over what I had prepared so far and I printed out some things. Feeling a little bit prepared.

Monday, March 24^th

Okay, so today went well. I got up at 6:30 and ate breakfast, helped get the kids ready and took the oldest two to school after Clémence had left. After, I took a shower and practiced the lessons, worked a bit on the next few, got ready to leave…and my stress level rose and rose. Having to drive didn’t help at all. I ate lunch at 11:15 and left by 11:45 and got to the school by 12:30 (it’s only supposed to take 15 minutes). I had a GPS, but some of the roundabouts were confusing, so I had a few moments when I took the wrong road – but just drove till I got to another roundabout and turned around.

The classes went really well (5^th grade: placement prepositions and 1^st grade: days of the week, months and weather). I was supposed to have two today, but when the second teacher found out that I didn’t have anything to do for the last period, she asked if I would be willing to work with the younger kids in her class (she had two classes in the same room – equivalent to kindergarten and 1^st I think). So, I did. We worked on colors, the alphabet, numbers, and greetings. Afterwards, I followed Clémence home and then we got the girls (the oldest walk home on his own now). After dinner, we played junior monopoly and then I worked n my lesson plans again. Not so stressed about the classes anymore, but so don’t want to drive stick again L. It’s getting better, but I feel so inadequate.

Tuesday, March 25^th

What a morning. Woke up with an unsettled stomach that continued off and on throughout the day, but I think it’s just nerves. I really just want to go home – as in to mom and dad… driving this morning was an experience. I didn’t get the GPS on correctly. First, it wasn’t calculating from their house, which I realized after I had started, so I pulled over (was still in their neighborhood) and thought I got it going correctly. So, I continued on, but took the wrong exit off of the auto route and realized that the GPS was on Demo, so it was of no help. I was on another auto route (going into Paris) and was freaking out because I couldn’t drive and figure out the GPS (it’s all in French, by the way) at the same time and I had no idea where I was going or how I could turn around. So, I was lost, stalled 5 or 6 times trying to get into a roundabout (because it was on an incline - eek) and had lots of cars waiting behind me. One of the cars pulled up beside me and the two men inside asked if I was ok. I told them that I just wasn’t used to driving stick and after they made sure that I wasn’t broken down, they kept going. I finally got the car going and found a parking lot to stop in while I figured out the GPS. Once that was figured out, it went much better. I went much better. I did go a different way, so I had more back roads, turning left, stopping and starting on inclines (didn’t stall again – yippee) and then made it to the school. Classes went well again (2^nd and 4^th grade: school material and customs for both) and I followed Clémence home afterwards.

Wednesday, March 26^th

Well, perhaps my upset stomach was not due to nerves (or just to nerves). I woke up feeling worse today and the vertigo is back. Thankfully, there is no school on Wednesdays, so I spent most of the day in bed, then ate dinner with the family and finished preparing my lessons for tomorrow (four classes this time).

Thursday, March 27^th

Felt a bit better this morning. Apparently I forgot to set my alarm (eek!) but woke up and had the sense to check the time – it was 6:45. Dogged a bullet there. I’m getting pretty tired and can’t wait to sleep in, but other than that things went well today. I think the teachers like what I’m doing, at least they are giving good feedback. Today I had 4 classes: 3^rd grade – house and rooms of the house; 3^rd grade – days, months, and weather; 1^st grade – read aloud in English to them; and 2^nd grade – school materials and culture.

Friday, March 28^th

Last day!!! And I don’t have to drive. Since I’m leaving by RER after school, Clémence came back to pick me up at noon and then dropped me off at the station afterwards. It was a good day again. I just had two classes 5^th grade – greetings, alphabet and spelling and 2^nd grade – reading aloud again. I played hangman with the 5^th grade to work on the spelling and I think it went pretty well. I used the phrases that we had practiced earlier in the class, so they had some reference, and made them spell out everything even when they guessed the phrase correctly. At the end of the class I left a few minute for questions (I did that both Thursday and Friday) and had so many different questions. Because I live in the US and Hollywood is in the US many kids wanted to know if I knew any stars. Ha, nope – because Hollywood is on the complete other side of the country.