Au revoir...

Well, here we are. I can't believe it has finally come to the end tomorrow I have two classes and that's it. I feels like yesterday that I had arrived in Fauville-en-Caux, feeling bewildered but excited for a new adventure... and now it's all over. The walls that were once covered in magazine cut outs, photos, postcards and posters are now bare, my personal things are being tided away into bags and boxes and the emptiness in the apartment makes it all feel so final. So now I've taken some time to reflect back on what my year abroad has meant to me.

I filmed a short vlog on the weekend summing up my year abroad:

Despite any whining about things here, I stand by what I said months ago when I had just settled in: this year abroad is truly one of the best things I have ever done with my life. My French skills have improved so much - my confidence, my accent, my vocabulary - and I've grown so much as a person too. After teaching classes I'm more confident as a speaker, as a helper with the school choir and as the assistant who teaches the kids I've become a better leader. I've bettered myself in coming here; I know I've changed and become a more confident person.

I've met some of the most wonderful people here and I am going to miss them all. Soon, we will all be scattered across the globe. From members of staff to other assistants, I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to meet them all. It's amazing to think that all these people I've met from the US, Canada, Spain, Colombia, Australia, New Zealand and the UK have all converged onto the same place at the same time which has let me meet and befriend some of the best people I've ever met. To all of you, thank you. I love you guys x

Today I had a little farewell party in the staff room at school where my teachers presented me with a pretty book of watercolour pictures of Normandy as a parting gift. I was so touched that when I tried to explain how I appreciated it and them that I burst into tears! Awkward. I've had lots invites to stay and have dinner when I come back and I was a little tearful when I had to say goodbye for the last time so some teachers as I won't see them tomorrow.

I was also quite sad to say goodbye to Galatée and her family who have welcomed me into their home and treated me as one of their own. So for our last afternoon together, Galatée and I made macarons according to the recipe of Pierre Hermé. It turned out to be a lot more work and effort than I had first anticipated but I'd say we did pretty well, although they're not all perfect circles....

My experience in France has changed my life. I've developed as a person here and I've had a wonder year abroad. I'll never forget my time here and I will always look back with fond memories. I'm sure I will keep in touch with my many new friends and I hope I'll see them again.

Goodbye seems too final, I like the way the French say it, 'au revoir'. Translated literally I guess it means 'until we meet again' which seems much more apt. I know this won't be the last time I come to Haute-Normandie, and it certainly wont be the last time I'll ever go to France. So I suppose, all that's left to say now is...

Au revoir x

Change.

Some people love change. These people hate staying still and need to have constant change in their lives to keep it exciting. Others prefer keeping things the same and seeking comfort in the familiar.

Me, I'm a little bit of both. As I only have a few working days left I'm beginning to feel a rather sad about leaving. Partly because I kinda like my job and partly because I'm so settled here. I've started to pack away my life here ready to drive home and I'm finding myself rather reluctant to leave. On the other hand, however, I've been yearning for a change from the slow yet tranquil lifestyle of the French countryside.

Despite everything I know that I am going to miss my apartment, the gorgeous scenery, my friends and my colleagues... but probably most of all I'll miss the food. I have resolved to throw all thoughts of dieting out of the window so I can enjoy the time I have left here to eat yummy baguette and cheese and drink some more wine... I'm actually nibbling on some Comté cheese as I type!

Anyway, over the long weekend my family came to visit me. We stayed in a cute little gite nearby (the same one from September) and we visited Etrétat, Rouen and Fécamp. I even took them to Holy Cow in Rouen - they agreed that they were awesome burgers there. It felt like a proper little holiday so I was pretty gutted when they left on Tuesday morning and I had to teach a few hours later. Oh reality.

This time next week I will have finished my teaching hours and everything in my apartment will be packed away ready to drive back home. Though it is a little sad I'm excited for the future too.

I am excited to announce that I have been successful in gaining an internship in PR for two months in London. I'll be living back on the Green and working hard until I go away on holiday to Hong Kong (I am going to DIE in the heat). I'm extremely excited to work in the big city, though I'm not looking forward to the commuting.

Sadly in the coming days will be seeing friends and colleagues for the last time for a while. I'd like to think that it's not just a 'goodbye' but a 'goodbye for now' or 'see you soon'. You never know where life may take you. My many new friends will soon be scattered across the globe but I hope our paths will cross again in the future.

For now, I'll focus on making my last few classes the best they can be and making macarons with Galatée on Wednesday.

ttfn x

The beginning of the end.

Well, I can hardly believe it but I am already coming to the end of my time in France. Although I have been missing life in the UK and Jersey like crazy, I'm definitely sad to go. The next two weeks of teaching will be the last time I see those kids. Ever.

At the beginning of the year I had said that one of my goals was to inspire just one student to learn to enjoy English. Last week I had a Year 10 student ask to see me privately. At first I was worried as she had said that she had a problem with English but as it turns out she just needed some help with some work that she had to do because she was excluded that day. I had known from the first time I taught her that she was capable but it was when we worked one-to-one that I realised exactly how bright she is. Afterwards she asked when I was leaving because she would like to have some private lessons and she thought her parents would agree. She said that in the future she now aims to study in the US for 9 months which her parents have agreed to provided that her English skills are good enough. If she continues to work hard with it I have no doubt that she will be able to go and have no fear of communication issues. In a way she's not the typical overachiever. She can play up in class, she has been excluded from classes a few times but on a good day she tries extremely hard and she succeeds. She has also been extremely supportive of my French endeavors. Although I try to speak as much English as possible to the students, I sometimes end up speaking in French. In the moments, particularly at the beginning of the year, where I hesitated she was one of the students that would say 'Don't worry, you can speak French, we'll understand'. The great thing was, she's pretty popular. She's one of the key kids where if you win her round, you win the class round. She definitely was a student that made me feel at home at the school and helped me become more confident with speaking.

Another thing I'll strangely miss is singing with the school choir. I haven't done anything like that since I left school, though here we only really sing pop songs(some are in English though!). Even though my singing is kinda rusty I really feel that learning the French songs have really helped me improve my accent. By rehearsing with the kids and trying to make my voice and tone blend with theirs I can sort of mimic their accent. Another thing it has helped me develop is my leadership skills, as cliché as it sounds. Because I have some experience with singing, I help the music teacher with singing by learning the alto parts and helping the altos learn their part. I've also been teaching them the English songs and helping them with the pronunciation. On Monday I was actually thrown into singing the soprano and alto part of a Coldplay song alone to help teach the choir which made me kind of nervous but I went along with it and it wasn't so bad :)

Now that I know I'm leaving soon, I've begun to pack some things away. My family are coming to visit me this weekend and they are going to help me take some stuff back that I don't need so my wardrobe and drawers are beginning to look a little sparse. I'm eating through the foods in my cupboards and soon I'll be taking down all my posters and photos which I had pinned up to make the place look more like home. My brother will be turning eighteen this weekend so we can hopefully go for a nice meal. I'm looking forward to seeing my family as I haven't seen them since the Christmas holidays.

I've started reflecting upon everything that I've learnt and achieved here. Just a few days ago I managed to have successful conversation on the phone to SFR, something that would have never happened a few months ago. I've improved on budgeting, eaten some really delicious French food, learnt how to live alone as well as improving my French. Still, there's time to cram in a little more learning!

For now, I'll keep planning some fun lessons to say goodbye to the kids with.

ttfn x

PS: I forgot to mention that before the holidays, I went to see the D-Day landing beaches. Here's a few photos:

Omaha Beach

The American cemetery

The Commonwealth cemetery 

Jacques a dit...

Dear readers,

There is no doubt that the novelty of the Period of Residence Abroad has worn off. I must admit that I've not been feeling my happiest recently but that all changed this afternoon when I had a great class with some of my 6èmes. They apparently loved the games they played with me so much (Simon says and Slap the Board on the subject of body parts) that they were extremely reluctant to leave - bless them.

Last week I had a couple of incidents in my classroom and I had to go and speak to the CPE about it today. Scary stuff. In a 5ème class, I was playing some good old Slap the Board when suddenly I hear a girl basically scream 'FINE, I'LL LEAVE, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?' before running out the door in tears. I literally just thought 'Merde, I should have stopped this...' As it happens, she had won a round of Slap the Board and the boy had accused her of cheating (how one might cheat is beyond me) until it escalated into insults when she freaked out and ran. At the time I had no idea what had happened because I was busy with the other kids, so after sending another student after her I rounded on them all and got to the bottom of it. I sent the boy back to the teacher and for the rest of the class I had them sit in silence. The boy was subsequently given a detention.

In a 4ème class I had the kids walking around the classroom and looking at the posters that I had pinned up around the room which had ideas for their bucket lists on it. We were working on the phrase 'I want to...' so I thought 'Perfect! Bucket lists!' So whilst I was walking around and helping some of the students translate some things that weren't on the posters I see one boy take his exercise book and smack other boy with it hard over the head. I wasn't having any of that in my class room so I was basically like 'Get out of my class'. He looked at me like he was confused and didn't understand why I would send him out after hitting another student. He kicked up a bit of a fuss but the others students were all dying to be the accompagnant to take him back. I don't know what punishment he's received yet.

I was extremely worried that the teachers would think it was my fault, in fact if anything really serious happens, it's the teacher who is culpable, not me. Nevertheless the teachers were unfazed by it. I guess it's pretty common having the kids do that. I certainly do not remember students hitting each other with books during my school days. Then again, I did go to a school entirely made up of girls.

Being in rural France it's extremely easy to get stuck. I spoke to one 3ème boy yesterday and asked him where he'd like to go in the future (expecting a country name), he quite simply said 'bah... au Havre'. This is a town which is about 40mins away in a car and apparently he'd never been. I spoke to Elsa, an English teacher, about it and she said that sometimes when they take kids on trips to Rouen it's their first time and they're amazed. Again, Rouen isn't far either, and it's hardly the hustle and bustle of Paris. I asked the boy whether there was any country in the whole world he'd like to visit and he simply said 'Non'. Weird.

In an effort to get out of this rut, I've been trying to do more exercise. I've started jogging again, but only when it's nice, which isn't often here. It's very windy and cold here today so I guess I'll be doing some yoga in the spare living room this evening.

I also went with some teachers to my first opera last week which was Mozart's singspiel l'Enlèvement au Sérail by the Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie. It was a very small production with a cast of five fantastic singers. Thankfully there were subtitles so I wasn't too lost amongst the vibrato. Parts of the opera involved some audience participation as well which I wasn't anticipating! the best part was that the tickets were only 8€ each. We were on the second tier but I had a great view of the whole stage and it wasn't like I couldn't hear. It was amazing to see such powerful voices that needed no amplification at all. Apparently there's one next month too, possibly a Beethoven, so hopefully I'll be able to go to that too.

It's only a week and a half until the holidays now. I'll be heading back up to Green (flying this time, thankfully) but this weekend I'm going to Bayeux with some other assistants so I'll report back soon.

ttfn x

Caen, Christmas and 2013

A belated happy new year to you all! May 2013 bring you good health and prosperity.

I was extremely happy to be able to go back to Jersey for Christmas, although I only got home on the 22nd December so I missed a lot of the run up to Christmas. It was so good to see all my friends and family again, and to be in an English speaking country.

The journey from Fauville-en-Caux to St Malo where I get the boat is about 3.5hrs by car so I decided to stop off in Caen along the way. I stayed overnight in the Mercure Centre Port de Plaisance which is a great hotel, highly recommended. I spent the afternoon exploring the town. First I ate alone (sad, isn't it?) but I had some moules frites and a great café gourmande in the best smelling restaurant in the area (I genuinely followed my nose!). I then decided go up to the old castle where they have a Musée de Beaux Arts and a museum about the history of Normande. The castle itself was built by William the Conquerer and there are abbeys in the town dedicated to him and his wife, though I didn't have time to see those. I decided to order myself a pretty cheeseboard and a glass of wine while I watched French TV and relaxed in the evening.

Back in Jersey after Christmas, Alex came to visit for a week and my family celebrated my father's 50th birthday with a dinner at the Somerville Hotel - one of my favourite places to eat out in Jersey! I also had a couple of friends round for New Year's Eve, the theme was 'ugly' knitwear...

Massive thank you to Maisie for the amazing Christmas jumper that she bought me for Christmas this year! 

I was dreading coming back to France, not because I hate it or anything, I quite like it here, but the idea of having to drive 3.5 hours in one go back to Fauville made me want to die. I had a boat to catch at 8am and I arrived back at my place at about 4pm. I was completely exhausted. The novelty of driving has definitely worn off. 

I've settled back into the routine of life in France now. I'm back to teaching and the kids have been mostly great so far (though I have the dreaded 4es coming up). On the weekend I was trying to decide how I can plan a really kickass lesson for them then a small voice in my head said 'It doesn't matter what you plan, they'll just muck about anyway.' Still, I'm determined to try to get them to work and enjoy it, even if some of them try my patience.

At the end of my first week back I went to Paris and do Disneyland with some of my friends from RHUL, Steph and Jenny. I hadn't seen Steph since June and Jenny since August so it was so good to get together again. I was a little worried that perhaps I was too old and the magic wouldn't be there anymore but it was AMAZING. I even stayed for the fireworks at the end; I've never done that before because I was quite young the last few times I went and my parents decided to take us home, or go to dinner at a show. Definitely one of the best days ever! I'm sooooo tempted to go back to the Disneyland in Hong Kong this summer (even though I went last time). The thing I was not prepared for was the extortionate prices int he gift shops! I was expecting expensive but not €6 for a plastic biro! NO ME GUSTA!

In other news, I have a new favourite annoying song...

It's the background music for a lot of videos by a guy on YouTube called haywong709 who does videos in Cantonese (trying to improve my skills, you see). The song gets stuck in your head for hours though.

That's all for now, dears.

ttfn x