Une profonde entente

Only one lesson at school today, and a bit of a tough one in a way. One of the troisième INTER boys decided that today he was not going to work, not going to pay attention, not going to speak English, not going to work in his given group and definitely not going to obey the teacher. In a way I was glad he wasn't directing his annoyance at me, but it certainly frustrated the rest of the class who were all trying to work. In the end, the only thing that shut him up was the threat of being sent to the headmistress. The rest of the class were lovely as usual, and the boy in question was being fine with me...I think he was just in a bad mood. But no excuse. Again the subject was the Second World War and In Flanders Fields, and the students have started work on their presentations of The Holocaust, Auschwitz, The Rise of the Nazi Party and real-life stories. All pretty depressing stuff, but I really do think that it is important that we keep these memories and experiences alive. Tomorrow I think my time with the troisième INTER will be spent helping the group missing their group member...lucky them I guess!

My afternoon was spent with Caroline, and we had so much to talk about! The last time I saw Caroline was a few weeks before Toussaint so we didn't stop talking for over two hours. So great to see her and find out all that has been happening for her and Sylvère...and possibly one of the most helpful things was talking about assistantships. When I was still in 6th Form in England, Caroline came to stay with my family for the first few weeks of October when she started her assistantship in England! It was so interesting to talk about all the different aspects of learning the language, and also compare the English system with the French...and realising that even someone who is now bilingual still had the same day to day problems at the beginning with the language as I am experiencing now. I think we have both perfected our I-am-totally-sure-what's-going-on-and-what-you're-telling-me face! These hours were of course over a good cup of English tea, some Dairy Milk, but also some chocolate covered marshmallows and Haribo (pictured). Well, we're all allowed a sweets only day at some point right?!

After Skyping a moustachioed Andy for a quick catch up, Laura came round for dinner and a film. Dinner: homemade burgers with cheddar cheese on a baguette (so French!). Film: Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists. This was followed by a quick scout on the German version of Amazon, so I could find a friend living in Würzburg (his year abroad!) a birthday present. Laura of course was invaluable as I cannot understand a word of German, and definitely needed a translator! The use of German Amazon was obviously so the postage charges weren't massively expensive...but before I arrived in France, I genuinely thought Amazon was only an English thing, who knew?!