Une Jumelle pour Janvier
Well, what do you know; a whole month has flown by without me updating about year-abroad life (well done on keeping your New Year’s Resolution to post more, Abs!) I’ve lived in France for over 4 months now (and still no CAF…): what an achievement! January has felt extremely long and I’ve had a touch of the January Blues, so I thought I’d write a post on all the positives of this month in Pau.
1. Tutoring!
I have started tutoring a 17 year old boy; he wants to improve his spoken English so I meet him every Thursday to discuss what he’s been doing in the week/ his upcoming plans etc. Sometimes it gets a little awkward to talk to him so I’m going to be taking in some interesting articles he can summarise and tell me his opinions on! He’s paying me 15e too. A teacher from one of my schools has asked me to help her 22 year old daughter out for the next few weeks as she has an oral exam at the end of the month. She’s studying Law and also wants help with her pronunciation etc… I am hoping I won’t need to know too much about Law because I know hardly anything! She is also paying me 15e, so all in all I’m earning a shweet 50e a week on top of my wage! (all which is going towards funding my move to Italy, youll be pleased to know Mum & Dad!)
2. Spanish Parties
One thing I have learned is the Spanish love their drinking games! After Fatima’s Welcome Back party we’ve also had a birthday party (and another this weekend) – which entail very loud games of Flip the Cup and lots of Salsa music! With the Sangria flowing of course… It’s very strange speaking French all day, thinking in English and then hearing Spanish… as well as occasionally talking Italian with Fatima (my brain is on language overload! I feel so European!) We also had a night out to celebrate(?) Harriett’s departure to Spain (this isn’t really a highlight because we were all very sad to see her leave!) but it was a good night nonetheless, with Ring of Fire and B52s and too much wine.
[at Irene's Birthday Party]
3. ‘January culture’ in France is very different to England
When I first arrived back in Pau, I was surprised to see billboards around the town wishing ‘Meilleurs Voeux’ from the Mayor, and buses driving around with ‘Bonne Année’ written on them. In England we tend to forget about the New Year as soon as we hit January 2nd; we only wish each other a New Year up until the New Year and our sales in the shops are over so quickly you barely get the chance to enter Topshop before the place looks like a bombsite! My teacher explained to me that in France, they wish each other best wishes for the New Year right up until January 31st; cards tailored to the New Year are in shops and are often sent to friends who live far away. The Epiphany (6th January) is greatly celebrated in France; the ring shaped cakes with secret gifts inside (I think they are called faveurs) are still being sold in the shops; the tradition with these cakes is that you have to keep eating it until someone finds the treasure – so much for January diets! The sales (les soldes) are also very different in France; they are so much better! They go on until mid-February, they have really nice stuff, and everything keeps getting reduced til it’s gone – meaning you get some great bargains! This, however, doesn’t stop the teenaged girls from cloning themselves in head-to-toe Bershka with brown suede ankle boots and Longchamp handbags. I thought France was fashionable?! For sheep maybe…
4. Teaching lols
Firstly, one of the kids actually said “C’est LOL!” at school today… I have no words… Funny stories from the past few weeks include a boy trying to describe that he was sad his cat was having an operation: he said “I am sad because… my cat is… open?” He was probably very accurate to be fair! Later in the lesson we were discussing “What are you wearing?” The children have learned the vocab ‘jacquard jumper’ (don’t ask me why they need to be so specific when describing their knitwear!) and one boy tried to say “I am wearing a jacquard jumper” but it came out “I am jacking…” I had to turn away to hide my laughter!! More mis-pronunciations include the obvious ‘sheet’ as ‘shit’ and ‘six’ as ‘sex’ (don’t even know how that happens!) Also, I recently had a 6 year old ask me when I was next coming into school and ended up having to teach him the days of the week… in French! Sometimes I wonder how on earth these children are going to learn English when they barely know French; they are forever getting corrected on their use of the passé composé and imparfait… their French is probably about as good as mine! Said boy has since learned to count up to ninety in French and ten in English. I’ve also recently learnt that children will honestly believe everything you tell them; I wore my camo jacket to school and the children genuinely believed me when I told them I am a soldier! I forget that at 10 years old they are still so young! Even though a group of girls regularly discuss with me our favourite foods, shops, and One Direction member (Harry, Zain and Louis are our favourites).
5. Sports
I’m calling this section sports even though it’s more ‘fun’ than sport. I hate sport. I like having fun. After skiing at the start of the year we planned to go again immediately, but as the weather has been so rubbish we’ve had to keep putting it off! There’s been avalaches apparently! Scary stuff. I bought some goggles earlier in the week though (they have pink lenses – trop cool) and we are finally going again tomorrow!! In other news, one of my teachers told me about her Zumba class the other day and asked if I’d like to join her! I said yes straight away and asked all the other girls if they want to come along. It’s such a laugh and something I’ve really started looking forward to on Thursday nights! (Never thought I’d actually LIKE doing exercise!)
6. Other things to mention I’ve been doing:
1. Meals with the girls ie. Spaghetti Bolognese, fajitas and Curry yummm
2. ‘Apples to Apples’ this great word association game that one of the American assistants brought back
3. Pub.
4. Saw Django in English (thank heavens) – Tarantino at his finest.
5. Went to McDonalds and will never ever be going again (too expensive/ too spicy / no vanilla milkshake)
6. The stalker boy at school asked me if I used to have a boyfriend with ‘surfer’ hair called Karl because he found me in a photo with a boy on Facebook… what the actual fuck. I said “Non, j’ai une sœur jumelle” (“No, I have a twin”) which for some reason he believed. I’m not complaining.
7. PLANNING: got so much coming up! Toulouse, Milan, Florence, Rome, Six Nations Final!!!, friends visiting, family visiting in April and still so much more to plan! I’ve also booked my Italian language school and am in the process of applying for a placement in Ferrara- when I move to Italy I’ll start a new blog I imagine. Really hope I haven’t forgotten all my italian perché voglio parlarlo fluentamente! I’ve assigned myself Tour Guide for our trip to Italy in the hols so let’s see how it goes!
[La Gave de Pau... just cos it looks pretty]
There are probably many interesting and important things I have forgotten to write; life in France is very spur-of-the-moment – we only decide to do things a couple of hours before they happen and I often forget to record what I've done. I wish I’d made a scrapbook as I have a whole shoebox of train tickets, receipts, leaflets etc.! Nevertheless, French life is good fun; I don’t really do much aside from teach English for a few hours four days a week and go shopping or drink hot chocolates with friends. There is so much I have learned about France (as well as lots of French!) that I wouldn’t have had the chance to learn without being here. I feel very lucky to be spending part of my life in another country and can’t believe it’s a compulsory part of my degree; when I’m older I’m going to be able to say ‘this one time, when I lived in France…” (said in Michelle’s voice from American Pie of course.) I get paid a ridiculous amount of money doing a job I would happily volunteer at; teaching has definitely become more of a ‘maybe’ and less of a ‘never’ future career option (No, Mum, that doesn’t mean I’m going to apply for a PGCE as soon as I get back). My year abroad is definitely one of the best things I have done; I have grown so much, my confidence levels have rocketed and I’m the happiest I’ve probably ever been. I am so proud to be doing a year abroad and I would advise anyone who has the chance to study or work in another country to definitely do it! [Soppiness alert, apologies!]
À plus! X