So I took my mum to the station on Monday and it is now
Friday and already it seems like a lifetime since she left. Not that I’m counting the days by the
last time I had any proper company or a proper meal (but if I were, I have
definitely have to say it’s been four days, as my cooking skills have drastically
deteriorated over the summer, and so far this week I’ve managed to burn a Halal
Pizza to a crisp (that’s a different story) and since then have stuck to a
simple bit of baguette with cheese and tomato), and I’m not being a massively
emotional about my mum leaving or whatever, I can look after myself pretty well
(cooking aside), but it has been one of the longest weeks of my life.
So, Tuesday was the day I met my first class. There’s that stereotypical dream (that
I swear no-one has ever had) about getting to school or work and realising that
you’ve forgotten to get dressed or whatever, well meeting the class for the
first time felt just like that; the teacher got me to stand at the front,
introduce myself and then asked me to talk about England – for fourty-five
minutes – to a group of teenagers, of which at least half couldn’t care less
and were probably not listening and were just wondering when they were going to
get their next nicotine kick (incidentally, it’s SHOCKING how many of the
students smoke, like when you walk up to the school at lunch-time, literally
every single one of the pupils you walk past is smoking). It was traumatic. For them. For me. For
all involved. Honestly, I wanted a
cigarette afterwards, let alone them.
I went straight to my brasserie afterwards. It took two coffees and
three mini biscuits to snap me out of my ‘omigosh-that-was-horendous’ stupour.
And on we go to Wednesday. I had to be up at 5am to get to
Dijon by 10am; oh my, 5am is a disgusting time. It might not have been so bad but I hadn’t slept very well
that night thanks to Herman and the girl he brought back -_- way to many
chinchilla antics to sleep. Anyway, so off I trudge at 6am to the gare, (which is another dark and cold
hour which I very much dislike) and several trains and buses later I am in
Dijon and have met an load of really nice people, who I really hope to meet
again during this year, three of who are in the Dijon academy from my
university! What a small
world. And I met another girl
there who is from Derby, even smaller world, haha. So that was a good day :) apart from it being very
long. After stopping for two
coffee’s (they’re 1€ each and small so it’s not too excessive to buy them in
two’s :p) I bought a bottle of wine on the way home to make Kirs, but I was so
tired, despite the coffee, that I couldn’t stay awake long enough for it to
chill.
Thursday, I spent all day until 3pm in the Brasserie having
Earl Grey after Earl Grey after Earl Grey trying to stay calm doing paperwork
and admin rubbish, and then spent an hour and three quarters setting up a bank
account in a French bank in French. ‘Nuff said.
Today, I met two more classes and had one-on-one sessions
with them, which was fun because I got to just take the reigns for a bit and
structure what I did in the sessions myself. After that I did yet more admin, then came home and drank a
lot of wine and now I’m on the sofa writing this. Blame the wine if this entry is rambling and boring, it’s a
pretty good reflection of how rambling and boring this week has been. I can’t wait for next week when I get
to properly start with the students and get into a semi-routine. Oh and I’ll
finally be able to get some internet or a phone :) maybe one day I’ll even be
able to post this blog :p
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