Beaucoup d'information

The past couple of days have been busy busy busy stressful busy. Actually, mainly yesterday. Wednesday was my birthday. Rachael and I had to make a quick dash to the bank in the morning, and in the afternoon we met with a lady called Marjorie who is going to drive us to her school in Toury every morning, and who drove us around following the bus route to find the easiest way for her to pick us up in the mornings. Getting in a car and driving round a place you do not know with a lady you do not know is a fairly odd experience. Aside from that, I had a very nice day. I made myself breakfast in bed (well, no one else was there to do it for me) and opened my presents from my family on skype and had cake with my dad and Anita and Rachael and went out for a very nice dinner. I then proceeded to get a bit weepy when I had to say goodbye to my dad, as he was going home very early the next morning, but it was all alright really. It didn't really feel very much like my birthday, but seeing as I had already celebrated it with everyone several times before I came abroad I don't really feel like I can complain!

Yesterday Rachael and I had our initial meetings at our schools. She's the assistant at the school in Toury, whereas I'm a bit further away in Rouvray. I don't know the finer details of the arrangement myself yet, but basically, Marjorie is giving us a lift to Toury, and then I am getting another lift from there to Rouvray. Toury is about forty minutes away from us, Rouvray maybe another ten. The gist of it is - we were up at 7am and didn't get home until half past six.

We both spent the morning in the school in Toury, and at lunchtime the conseillere pédagogique (I don't know what that is in English - like, educational councillor/advisor?) of the region, a lady called Catherine, came to meet us there. She seemed very on it, which was reassuring, but she gave us a LOT of information in one go which I'm not 100% sure I can remember. She then drove me to my school in Rouvray. One conversation we had in the car amused me very much: she told me it was a tiny village but a very big school. When I asked her how big it was, she said "oh, it has six classes".

Yeah, so it was a pretty tiny school. It was lovely when I arrived though; the kids were on a break and were obviously waiting for us, and when we walked up to the gates they bore down on us like a swarm of bees, going "Hello!" "Hello!" "Hello!" (With the occasional "Bonjour!")

Catherine introduced me to the teachers and once the children had gone in, we went round and she told all the classes individually who I was, and then had me introduce myself to them. For the younger classes, I did it in French, but for the older ones I tried it in English and then asked them how much they had understood - they all seemed to get it pretty well. Once I'd done that they had a chance to ask me questions and, well, that was it. A selection of the questions I received:

"Have you met the Queen?" (Unfortunately not.)
"Do you know David?" (David was their last assistant - no, England's quite a big place.)
"How do you say my name in English?" (They seem to be obsessed with this.)
"Why do you like the colour red in England?" (I have to say this one threw me. I said I didn't think that we did like the colour red that much in England, and he pointed out that our buses and letterboxes and phone boxes are red. Touché.)

The loveliest was the little girl who put her hand up straight away when the teacher asked them if they had any questions and just said "Elle est jolie" (she is pretty). She is already my favourite. I have a gold star ready for her.

All in all, it was a very lovely welcome, but by the time I got back to Toury it was quarter past five (the school days are 8.30/9.00-4.30 in France) and Marjorie didn't finish till quarter to six, so I was absolutely shattered, extremely hungry, and had a terrible headache from the amount of information in French I had had to absorb, by the time we got home at half six.

Fortunately, I now have a weekend with nothing particular to do ahead of me, so I'm going to watch Downton Abbey and Doctor Who and sleep, before it all starts again on Monday. A plus tard!

Touchdown

I've been slightly neglectful of this in the last couple of important weeks leading up to my departure from England. I want to say it's because I've been really busy all the time doing tons of exciting things, but that would be a lie. I have, however, been enjoying my last days with my family and boyfriend for a while, before leaving to discover if I am actually as self-sufficient as I apparently think I am.

And now I'm here! I travelled down with my dad, who is staying in Orléans till Thursday so I won't be lonesome on my birthday. It was also nice to not be alone on the plane, as I really do hate flying - although the flight was much shorter than I was expecting so it wasn't too bad really. We flew to Paris Orly and drove down to Orléans - taking quite a bit of a detour due to the complicated airport exit system and my terrible map-reading skills. Test of Laura's French No. 1: asking for directions.

So I arrived at my house at about 1.15 yesterday. My landlady was here to greet me. Her name is Anita, she was very welcoming and she honestly seems really lovely and helpful, which I have to say was quite reassuring on first arrival. After chatting to her to a bit, unpacking, and having a quick chat on skype with my mum, I decided to do something really exciting and - have a nap. Well, I had been up since 4.15 that morning. Later in the evening, I was a bit more adventurous and went out with my dad for dinner, having a bit of an explore of the city at the same time.

Today, Test of Laura's French No. 2: trying to find a phone deal. Fortunately I wasn't on my own for this one - I went with my housemate, Rachael, who arrived last night, so we were able to back each other up. However, one of the conversations still went like this:

Rachael: Bonjour, nous cherchons un SIM prépayé pour faire les appels internationaux... (Hello, we're looking for a pay-as-you-go SIM to make international calls with...)
Phone shop man: ...do you speak English?

Never mind.

I've taken a few photos which I intended to put on the end of this post, but I have just this minute discovered that I have in fact forgotten the cable which connects my camera to my computer. I'll try and sort that out... however, this may be a photo-less blog for a while.

A bientôt!

Stress is a four-letter word

A list of things I have not done yet:

1. Booked my flights/Eurostar tickets.

2. Decided whether I am travelling by plane or by Eurostar.

3. Sorted out my Erasmus mobility agreement (because I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT).

4. Received my translated birth certificate in the post.

5. Bought some insurance.

6. Spoken to my bank.

Basically I think I have reached that stage where everything is so complicated that I'm going to try and ignore it for as long as possible in the hope that maybe it'll go away, and instead I will have a breakdown a nice cup of tea.

Hyperbole aside, it really does feel like it's creeping up on me now. However, I have a number of nice things ahead of me which mean I'm not just fixating on my upcoming departure the entire time, which is quite reassuring. Tomorrow I'm going to Leicester with my boyfriend, ostensibly so he can move into his house for next year but really it's just an excuse to go to the rugby (for him, not for me). I also have two (TWO) pre-birthday celebrations before I leave, as my birthday will be the week after I've left for France. Counting the two I have already had, that will make five birthdays this year - can't be bad, really.

I'm also pushing firmly aside my aversion to the idea of e-readers and have asked for a Kindle for my birthday. Theoretically, I still think that they are a poor substitute to a real book and MUST NOT CATCH ON under any circumstances. However, practically, it really makes more sense for me to have one this year, as I have limited luggage space and absolutely no intention of not taking any books with me. Considering how much weight taking paper books would use up in my suitcase - and even if I go by train, how much space they'd take up - having a Kindle is the more sensible option, and will also let me keep on buying English language books even while I'm abroad if I want to.

How I get on with it will remain to be seen, but I'm keeping an open mind (honest).


I know it makes sense, but look how much prettier the books are!

The countdown begins

So it's September now and that means it's getting scarily close to the time where I actually have to leave the country and move abroad for seven months. I should probably be more excited. Actually, when I let myself think about it at all, I'm just very, very nervous.

I'm teaching English in a primary school in a tiny village called Rouvray-Saint-Denis which is about a 50 minute car journey out of Orléans, the place where I'm living. I had the option of living either there, or in another town called Toury which was a fair amount closer to Rouvray, but from what I could glean from Wikipedia (admittedly not much), Toury is not actually that much bigger than Rouvray and is really a big village rather than a town. I figured it would be better to live in a city where there's more to do as we are only contracted to teach 12 hours a week anyway, and that I'd worry about how to get to and from the school later. This is actually something I still haven't worked out yet.

I should also point out that I've never taught before, ever. Two of my main worries are that either I'm going to be really, really bad at it, or I'm going to hate it. Possibly both, but let's not go there. However! In an attempt to be vaguely optimistic in my first blog post of my year abroad, let's go through some positives: I finally have an address in France, I have a housemate who's also on the assistantship programme from Leeds University, my landlady seems very nice and helpful, I've sorted out the majority of the documentation I need (I think), and French schools seem to have an absurd (but delightful) amount of holiday.

Everything else, I'll figure out tomorrow.