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Bonsoir Thibaud!

ISO as high as it can go and dim lighting doesn't always make the best of photographs, but his expression makes me smile.

The sixième INTER were not their usual sunny selves today. Perhaps because it was first thing on a Monday morning, more likely that we were doing reported and direct speech...the dreaded grammar lessons! Even teaching them is boring to be completely honest with you, but these things have to be done before the fun stuff can begin. This sequence is going to end with them creating an e-book and sending it to their penfriends in Denmark. So not all bad! I think once we get into the project they will realise that they have to know these things to be able to write. Don't get me wrong, they were still lovely, just a lot...quieter, more subdued than normal. I think as well, even though most of them are almost fluent when speaking, they never usually see written English unless their parents really force them to read or to write things in English - so being used to French, all the grammatical rules are different!

This class was followed up by the troisième, just the normal ones. And similarly, we were doing reported speech. To liven this up for them I split the class and made it a competition between the two sides to who could get the most transformations from direct to reported speech right. Sounds pretty boring, but what fifteen year old doesn't love a competition?! I was surprised actually at how well it went. Rather tiring though to keep the momentum up, but glad it worked.

After a quick stop at home for lunch I arrived at the tram stop all ready to get a tram back in for my final lesson of the day with the troisième INTER to find that there had once more been an incident tram and all trams were en retard. Lucky me, especially since I take the class on my own. But thankfully when I did arrive all the class were present and correct and had kept schtum, not telling anyone that I was late! Thank god for that is all I can say!

So tonight I spent the evening with Thibaud, the rather dashing man photographed here. Not the most confident of people around cameras, I think I will just wear him down over time persistence-wise until he finally gives in and says he takes a good photograph! So what started with a coffee turned into a class of wine, and then another...and then me managing to not only miss my last tram, but the last tram in service, and the last bus. Whoops! Luckily Thibaud happens to have a car, so we wandered up to the university to make use of said car (as we had also missed the final trams there!)...do not worry, it is only a ten or fifteen minute walk. It's the uphill bit of said walk that makes you want to take the tram. Was also surprisingly easy to find Grâce de Dieu seeming as I have never really been there by car (the tramline has its own dedicated roads and the bus goes the long way around every house in the area!) and he had never driven there! Today has been quite a lucky day in all now I think back...I guess it's just when you accept things out of your control will happen makes everything seem better. And more fun. I've not laughed as much in a while then when we were in the car attempting to see signs to take us to where we needed to go!