Going Godervillaise

Working with the teaching program TAPIF in Goderville, France.

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If a muffin doesn't have a top, does that mean that I won't be getting one either if I eat it?

[other-wordly]

pronunciation | re-trU-‘vI submitted by | enelec submit words | here see also | trouvaille: something lovely discovered by chance; a windfall

[ouisconnie]

see you tonight, madison!

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A 3-minute video for the EF and Erasmus Global Intern competition! Please watch, like, and share.

[quandtuesfeministe]

Quand on te dit que le féminisme, c’est de l’extrémisme.

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My exact feeling when *someone* tried to tell me to do my research on feminism before accepting it for all that it is.. when she herself admitted to not doing much (let's be serious, any) research herself.

Non, mais, ALLO! ALLO!

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Blue Shorts

I've been a bit sparse when it comes to updating this, but I've been writing a bit for a different blog (http://blog.grads.co.uk/author/tatiana/), and I guess my "ok, let's write a new blog entry" energy has gone to that instead of Going Godervillaise.

February vacation was nice and relaxing, as were the two weeks that followed since many teachers were on strike and then a snow storm basically shut down the town. For a few days I went to school to find it either completely locked or void of students. At least I live right by the campus.

I was also waiting to update this blog because I wanted to be able to post some funnier, maybe more interesting stories here and for a while it's been pretty "standard", just like the gray and rainy Normandy weather. However, a while ago I vowed to be more honest with my writing. People always put the best of themselves on the internet, and let's be honest - that's lame. We have so many ways to share now, so why not share what's really going on. The good(-ness of a French baguette), the frustrating (bus/train system), the hilarious (moment when a might-be-psycho decides to recite his rap to you in English on the train, so that you can correct it for him), and even the mundane parts of life (especially living in a tiny French village).

I only have a few more weeks in Goderville, and although I am happy to move onto to other things (I need frequent change in my life.. I rearrange my furniture every couple of months). However, I don't know what that next step is, like many I suppose, and I'm at a crossroads.

I took a long train ride to Paris this weekend and thought about a lot of things. My car was empty at first, and it was nice to have some space. I guess it helped my thought process - and my ability to sleep. I thought about silly, random things like taking a cross-country road-trip with my dog, Luna. I also thought about some semi-serious topics (that may sound silly at first): I thought about how I brought along a pair of summer shorts, even though I arrived in Normandy at the beginning of September and was well aware of the less-than-ideal weather patterns. Yeah, I know. I'm going to talk about shorts, but don't write me off just yet.

So I brought these shorts because I was so certain that I was going to need them in Paris, where I would be moving after my job in Goderville ended. Where I thought I would want to move after Goderville.

And so when I was sifting through clothes to throw out, I came across these blue shorts and just thought about why I had brought them along in the first place. It just reminded me of how I was so sure I'd be needing them for those nice Parisian summer days along the Seine, where finally for the first time in my life I would get a lovely tan.

I suppose it's a bit silly but these dumb aqua shorts seem to be symbolic in a way, symbolic of how we make decisions because we are completely sure it's what will make us happy. Then when the moment actually arrives, we discover it's maybe not the thing that will actually make us truly and completely happy. Then again, nothing does in this world.. il faut l'avouer.

Bref. I want to live in Paris. I want to live in New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Porto or Lisbon or Coimbra. I really do want to take a cross-country road-trip with my dog. And at the same time, I want to train travel to Germany and Monaco and Andorra and everywhere.

I want a lot of things, and to be able to do them in a lot of places. At the same time of course. Is that seriously too much to ask? I'm sometimes afraid to make a decision. But I guess if I want everything to happen now, I'm setting myself up for at least some disappointment. Why? Because everything everywhere and at the same time isn't possible. Maybe that's why we're given a lifetime, some of us at least.

Or ...

Maybe I just need to stick with jeans. But then again, I'd never get that summer tan with jeans on all the time.

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Normandy went from sunny and springy to full on winter snow storm. Hasn't stopped since yesterday and gets up to your knees when walking outside.

Thought we'd introduce Jerry to the snow. I think she enjoyed it.

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"If he's not reading your work, he's not reading you"

- Jessa, Girls Season 2

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Now serving as a guest blogger for Grads.co.uk, a place to share experiences, mistakes, stories, and advice during our university and post graduate years

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Chocolate chips not filling up my ventre...

Time to go to Carrefour

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Remembering Portugal today.

Take me back, or if you've never gone, go for me please :)

[kalynroseanne]

Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes.

The Winter of the Air  (via beamuppet)

I love this entirely too much. 

(via moonbeam0518)

umm, yes. exactly.

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Breaks abroad

During study abroad, I spent my vacation days traveling anywhere and everywhere in Europe. Barcelona, London, Lisbon, Porto, Aix-en-Provence, Rouen, Budapest, Geneva, Luxembourg, Amsterdam... and the list went on.

Now during my work abroad, I spend my vacation time looking for more work (and ok, I admit it watch the walking dead), to stay abroad... and of course to pay the rent. Real life happens everywhere, even if you move to another continent. It's great and if it's where you want to be, then kudos for you to taking a risk. But we always have to keep at least some level of reality right?

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Just bought a dwarf rabbit with my boyfriend here in France.

And he likes to eat well.

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Fécamp, 20 minutes from chez moi

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So if I may be "franche"...

The past two days have been extremely frustrating - my job and just life as a young expat in general. I've said merdre more than a few times - especially when forgetting my CV to a woman that is going to interview for a job in a few weeks, and then having her notice. Of course,  I had sent my resume twice before to her (but to the wrong address because of my lack of comprehension on the phone). When I do get the correct address though, I forget to send it. Oh well, it had to happen sometimes.

Yesterday, as usual, there were classroom problems. I go between two classrooms, and I'm constantly interrupted by a sub or "surveillant" and the twenty-or-so students he or she has to entertain that day. It's understandable - I'm not a teacher, and even if I were I might not even have my own classroom. There is limited space in this crowded middle school, and many teachers have to move from class to class depending on their hours and when other teachers have finished for the day.

My usual Tuesday classroom was taken by "the walking cigarette" as many professors call her (I guess because she smells like tobacco?) for a special test given to the 8th graders, or 3eme. I then took the classroom next door, my usual one. However, 6th graders began showing up at the door, declaring that this was "their" room and that I should move.

...

Yes, it was quite interesting to be talked to in that manner, but I said that I would talk to the surveillant about it when I came back. It's always a risk to leave the classroom in the beginning to go grab your group from their classroom (I go to English classes in the beginning and lead half of the group to my classroom). If I come back a minute or two too late, a surveillant is usually in there with all her students, even though my powerpoint is on the screen, and all my materials sprawled on the desk.

In the end, I got "their" classroom, as the 6th graders called it. It can be easy to feel as if I have no authority sometimes, or don't know how to respond to phrases like that, as if I were still a child, but I suppose it takes time like everything else. Language (understand interviewers on the phone) and Culture (knowing how to act/respond to certain cultural differences in the education world) come to mind.

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Some photos from my trip to Portugal. A little over a week of driving from Lisbon and Sintra area all the way to Melgaço, a small town that borders Spain, about an hour and a half from Porto.