Un Français; en couleur

Finally managed that lie-in I've been promising myself, and boy it was nice! Started school with the quatrième EURO...and finally finished listening to all 24 similar speaking exams on the same subject. Not going to lie, it got a little boring towards the end...and every time the same statements and mistakes were made, and I had to prompt in exactly the same way every time. But then again, at least it is done now and I don't have to do it again! The students are genuinely lovely though, and I do really like spending time with that class because they are so enthusiastic. The two hours or so I had between that class and my final one of the day were spent getting to grips with the French keyboard, again. QWERTY vs. AZERTY...the number of times I wrote an Q instead of an A, well, we're not going to get into to it! My final lesson was with two troisième INTERs, and it made me very happy that what we have been working on has just suddenly clicked for both of them. With the Martin Luther King speech we have been doing, we have highlighted important phrases, imagery, I/You/He/We/They and repetition...and both of them were telling me about the speech rather than me having to point it out to them. Sometimes the colourful nature of the Humanities student with their different coloured highlighters really does lend itself to teaching!

Early evening was spent with Mathieu, pictured above. Now I know I always go on about how French people don't dress very formally, don't wear colours, and don't smile...well I think he has managed to disprove this blanket statement by pulling of a blue shirt and papillon, and looking very happy about it on the way cheeky grins are always the best! Great to catch up on life, and I really enjoyed correcting Mathieu's English work (I know, bit of a geek!), especially finding the repeated/common mistakes...because usually I do the same when I am writing in French! A common thing is using le and la a lot more than we would use 'the'...hence the lack of my le's and la's when I write French, and a plethora of 'the's when French people write English!

Words I have learnt today:-
- Rejoindre - to join
- Retrouver - to rejoin
- Marteau - hammer
- Rendre - to give back
- Billot - block (of wood)
- Aiguille - needle

My late evening was spent chez Kendra with Becky, Kendra and Meg....and we watched J'irai dormir à Hollywood, a film that is well worth the watch. Pretty much the story of a French guy who goes to America to meet the American people...but there are some very tense moments, I know at one point we were all hiding our heads in our hands and shouting at the screen for him not to do something! One of those films that you start out not expecting much; but turns into a very interesting and educative experience. Only low point of the evening was that my umbrella (hanging out outside Kendra's door had been commandeered by some drunken French men for a smoke, who had then disappeared), and on the way to Simon's I managed to attract a following of drunk men (perhaps it was my red coat?)! But all in all, I feel very safe on the streets of Caen, and I would say the majority of people here are harmless! A few glasses of wine and some good conversation topped of a nice chilled out night.