Jessica Rowan

October 23, 2005

On Wednesday, after I updated this site, I went to the food store in order to get some food for the week, and to generally waste some time. When I walked into the food store, the French air force was there, and they were trying to recruit people. They had flight simulators which were converted from older planes and they even had games for little kids which were pretty cool.

I wasn’t feeling to good on Thursday so I didn’t eat much of it. It was a stuffed tomato and mashed potatoes with a piece of café-mocha cake for dessert.

On Friday, I left my room and the sky was beautiful. By the time it took me to walk to work, it became every dark and cloudy. During my first class, the skies opened up and it poured. I was just thinking in my head that it couldn’t rain like this for long. Boy was I wrong. Anyway, my first class of the day consisted of 3 seniors who all like to study English. We finished the assigned work in about 40 minutes, leaving 15 to get them to talk about their interests and to ask me questions. All of them seem to dream about NYC. It was cute. They were all asking about how to get to New York, what airports to land at, when is a good time to visit, etc. They went on even though the bell for the end of class had rung. It was a good feeling to have students so interested in the states. It was still pouring as I walked from my classroom to the ‘cantine’ (cafeteria). Teachers are allowed to cut in line because all of the students have lunch at the same time. So about 800-1000 students line up for lunch. Most of the time, teachers have meetings with parents or department meetings during the second hour of lunch so everyone seems to take one hour to eat and relax for about an hour. I noticed my French gets better when I eat lunch with the teachers because they ask me questions and help me with my grammar and when I’m not talking I get to listen to other teachers tell stories about them. During my second hour of lunch, I have agreed to tutor a girl named Mathilde who aspires to become an actress in England one day, but first she needs to work on her English. I help her with English 4 hours a week and in turn she helps me with my French. She asks me questions about home, about where I went to high school and college, how my boyfriend is, what do my friends do when they hang out, what is popular slang in the states, and on and on and on. French students are always amazed by how much American students work and how much time is put into sports. Another thing that always astonishes the students is the fact that many American families rarely eat together because everyone has different schedules. Most students in France practice sports for maybe 2 times a week after school, and then twice on the weekend and most students here don’t have after school jobs. There is a major emphasis and doing homework correctly and taking time with your family.

After tutoring, I had to cover a class for Christiane – one of my main professors that I work with. She had to monitor a practice test for their BAC (High school proficiency test and university placement in one). So I sat and watched the class while they worked on a few dittos. It really amazes me that they sat so quietly and really worked hard to try to finish their work. When she came back to the class to start her lesson, the students were disappointed that I wasn’t going to stay and help out with the class. I had to do some administrative tasks so I headed over to the ‘intendence’, which is basically the people who take care of disbursing funds, paying teachers, and taking care of all social security paperwork. I love the women there. There are really kind and are always ready to listen to me and give me suggestions on where to plan trips and what kind of food to get when I arrive there. They kind of remind me of the women I worked with at Douglass and the women at Champion mortgage, but they speak French. One of the women speaks English really well. She always checks in on me to make sure I’m not lonely and that I have plans to keep me busy. I told them all about my trip and they think I’m crazy for trying to accomplish all of my itinerary but they were happy to hear about it. I talked to them for about an hour and then I went to the teacher’s room and had a cup of hot chocolate while I waited for my next class.

I had two more classes that separated me from my first ever paid vacation. I knew it would go fast, but I also new that if the rain didn’t stop, the vacation wouldn’t be that great. My first class went on with out a hitch. I wish I could say that about my second class. My second class consisted of two boys and four girls. Three of the four girls talked in French to themselves for almost the entire class. I ignored it for about 10 minutes thinking that they would stop. After 10 minutes, I told them in English to stop and it was rude to their fellow classmates who were straining to hear me. After about 7 minutes more, I went back and said in French to stop and I wasn’t going to tolerate it. They quieted down for about three minutes. Then I went back and I said, in English, I don’t mind if you talk, as long as it’s in English. One girl then turned back to her group and said, “Oh, f*ck, shit, bitch.” My jaw dropped to the floor. I said “Well atleast it was in English, then another girl responded to that by saying “Salope (bitch), putain(generally vulgar word that means about everything), merde (shit),” I just gave her a look. The three good students tried to cover for their classmates saying that they were talking about the ‘plage’ beach and were pronouncing it wrong. I was like … yeah and how about the other words that were said, not only in English but also in French. I just ignored them for the rest of class and tried to answer questions of the good students. After class ended, although I had told Mathilde that I would meet her after school for coffee, I had to search for the professor to tell him what had happened. I ran into one of my professors, Huguette, and told her what happened. She said that the way that they acted was completely out of the norm and that it bothered her. We walked back to the professors’ room together and I ran into the German assistant. She was telling me that the assistants in Valence have been wondering where I was and that they all live in a place down the road from me. Good deal, now I have fellow assistants that I can visit. While I was talking to the German assistant, the professor for the previous class had heard the story from Huguette and found me to get it straight from me. The students will be reprimanded because they are not allowed to treat teachers like that, let alone a guest from another country. That kind of made me feel better.

I met Mathilde about ten minutes after I was supposed to meet her. She was waiting in the rain. I felt horrible. Someone had stolen her umbrella and was kind of upset about it. We both walked from school to a café with out our umbrellas in the pouring rain. When we got to the café, we both looked like wet dogs. She got a cappuccino and I got a cup of tea and we sat and talked about movies for about an hour. The rain never stopped. Her mom came and picked her up and I waited for a bus. Luckily, I got a bus and a connecting bus without many flaws. The problem was that the bus stop is about 2 blocks from my building. By the time I got to my building, my backpack and clothes were absolutely soaked. The rain lasted all night. I was a little nervous because I had planned that trip to Arles for Saturday and when I woke up it was cold and rainy. So I packed my umbrella and hit the road.

I took the train from Valence to Arles on Saturday morning and as the train went south, it was raining less and less. I arrived in Arles around noon. Unfortunately I didn’t know that most of the monuments closed in September. So I walked around and took pictures from the gates and I did whatever was open.