J'en ai marre

So pretty much all my classes had a bit of a downer today! I started with a new cinquième class, and a normal rather than EURO or INTER...and had to once again present myself. I don't know how long most people can talk about themselves in front of an audience of mute children who look as if they don't understand what you're saying (and probably mostly don't!), but my new personal best is now 6 minutes. This is taking into account that I am an only child, and don't have much other family to speak of unless I go down the great-uncle/aunts route, and explaining that was just too much bother! I even did a bit of a show-and-tell with my camera, which changed their faces from blank to recognition...oh, Madame,c'est un appareil photo! Yes indeedy it is, although when I named it so in English, their faces once more went blank. So after my not so thrilling speech I stayed with them to help with the rest of the class. Boy, they are noisy...almost total disregard for what the teacher is saying. Lucky for me that they are now permanently timetabled to be with me.

Next in my day of catastrophes was the sixième INTER, the struggling ones. And someone had definitely put their I-don't-give-a-damn heads on over the weekend as none of them had done the set homework that I was meant to be skimming over before the classwork. After further questioning I realised that they hadn't even read the chapter before the one the homework was set on. Now to say I was livid with them is a bit of an understatement. After sending one of them off with an angry note to my responsable (telling her I couldn't get on with the planned lesson) I got on with going over the chapters that they hadn't done. The thing that really worries me is that they are falling further and further behind compared with the rest of the class...and I'm not certain if they carry on like this that they will ever be able to catch up. And to top it off they tried to pretend that no homework had been set. Right, rant over.

I wish.

So I met another new class today, and rather than spending the time getting their measure I was immediately given over half the class and told to help them speak about what they would change in the world. Now to give them their due, most of this new troisième class were lovely. In fact, the boys table that I thought would be absolute trouble turned out to be great as soon as they realised I wasn't going to take any bullsh*t from them. In fact, I think they worked the hardest! My problem came with the table of girls...with whom I hadn't been informed of their awful level of English. Once I realised they didn't have a clue what I was saying I started speaking in both English and French (forbidden of course!) to help them. Not that they appreciated it! I went round the entire class and started correcting their phrases and having a bit of a giggle when they realised they'd said something completely wrong (my favourite has to be one written by another girl: "I get really annoyed by women's rights, because they have the same rights as men") and helping them understand what they had done wrong. Got to my problem table and instead of smiles or attempts to correct phrases I was told I was "wrong"(?!) apparently as a native English speaker I obviously have less knowledge of the English language and given a very specific look. A typical fifteen year old girl look...you know, that pout, but with an added Gallic shoulder shrug. Really riled me actually, as I'm there to help, not to mark, and definitely not to judge their levels of English! The entire group of four had written exactly the same thing, so I made all four of them read out their answers to the rest of the class...I had just had enough of them! I hope they learnt their lesson. Teacher Jen coming to the surface!

My final class of the day was one of my favourites, the troisième INTER. One problem, the eight of them were missing! Ended up going down to permanence to check where they were and started a man-hunt with three other members of staff! Turns out that in the class before the teacher made the entire class (including my INTER students) stay ten minutes later because they all arrived late due to a late lunch. Of course, he didn't believe them when they said they had another class to go to. Cue awkward conversation later when I had to tell him that they would always have that class and that he should let them go on time. I'm not particularly used to having to assert myself with a colleague, in French, and for something they've done wrong...but it seemed to go alright! The rest of the class was really fun though, and the troisième are really enjoying the film, so much so that they wanted to stay in the classroom through their break to watch to the end of a scene. Yey!

After, frankly, a rather exhausting day I spent the evening with Kendra, Becky, Claire, Laura and Rosemary for Rosemary's last evening in Caen. We ended up going out for a meal at a crêperie after a tiny bit of retail therapy. I managed to find another little thing to add to my mum's present collection which makes me rather happy! Got some other ideas for family members, but will have to run them past mum before I go out and buy them...

This photograph is taken just outside the crêperie, in Place Saint Sauveur. It makes me so happy that the French really do put a lot of effort into their Christmas Lights!

A strange day really. Quite stressful, but I don't feel stressed: quite tiring, but I don't feel tired. I guess that means it kind of counts as a good one!