Funny Story

During my activity today in my CE2 class (3rd grade), I was trying to explain the words girl and boy to them because we were doing English names. In order to demonstrate who is a girl and who is a boy I pointed to each student and said boy, boy, girl, boy, girl, etc. Then I passed out the English names based on their gender when out of the corner of my eye I see a hand raised. Yes? I asked.
The student replies..."But I'm not a girl, I'm a boy."
I had accidentally counted him as a girl because of his long curly hair and slightly feminine face.
"Uhhhh, ok." I quickly rushed and gave him a boy's name and changed the subject immediately.

I can't believe I did that...I feel terrible and I bet this kid will be scared for life!

La honte totale!

A Trip to the Happiest Place on Earth: The Prefecture

The title of this entry is course very sarcastic. After my incident last month with them refusing to renew my carte de sejour when they had been promising me for a month, I was hoping for a more optimistic outcome today. The woman who turned me away the last time had told me to come back on a Monday because that's when she would be working.
So Monday it is...
I wake up bright and early this morning (ok not that early, 8am) and I arrive there at about 9:30am to see staring back at me a tiny peice of paper covering the étrangers sans R.D.V. button, annoucing that its closed Monday mornings! Ok..fine, I'll come back this afternoon after I teach. After class I arrive at 3:23, it closes at 4pm. Now since there is always ONE person working at each station to help an endless amount of people, I was expecting to be turned away at 4. Thankfully it was my turn 20 minutes later. I stood up expecting to see the lady that knows my situation and who is going to help me get my new carte de sejour....and its not her.
It's her replacement, a very pleasant lady who barked at me to get out of the office to let a previous person in ahead of me. When it was my turn (it already was) I quickly explained to her my situation and starting handing her my official papers. Then she barks again: PHOTOCOPIES! I NEED PHOTOCOPIES. Of course with my luck I had all of them except a photocopy of the apartment contract. I was sent out and told to go make a photocopy.
I come back with the photocopy and then she asks for a photo. I don't have a photo because the prefecture took them in July, telling me that those with be for my new carte de sejour! I tell her, they are in my file, that's why I didn't bring one.
Of course its too difficult to get my file or to get it tomorrow just to stick a photo on the recipssee. No, not possible. I need to bring in another one! ARRGG!

I hate that place.

Mon Dieu

Wow, my second day of teaching and already I feel exhausted. I was warned that this school would be difficult but after what I saw today, I'm bordering on afraid.
A little boy about 9 years old was screaming at the tops of his lungs at the directrice after she witnessed him kick another girl. No only did he scream every swear word I've ever heard in french but he told the teachers that he didn't give a fuck and went as far as to hit her.

I was completely amazed at this because when I was his age, I was terrified of adults. I was even afraid of kids that were only a year older than me.

This kid is going to have a lot of problems growing up.
Oh and this is one of my students. I'm looking forward to the year ahead.

HELP!

Expat Interview

I just did an online interview at www.expatinterviews.com about my life in France. I talked about how I got to France, what I do here and the pros and cons about living in France. Click here to check it out! I know that they are always looking for doing to do interviews for their site so if you're interested, sign up and fill out the questionnaire.

Here are some of the pros and cons that I talked about in the interview:

Pros:

• Cheap health care!
• The food!
• The wine, the cheese etc etc etc
• The beautiful country and the history
• Good public transportation
• Government aid for underprivileged people

Cons:

• Stores are always closed on Sundays, between 12-2pm during the week, and closed after 7pm. Growing up in the US of course there's ALWAYS something open until late at night or even all night.
• There are never enough employees for customers, i.e.; the Post Office, the Bank, the super market, etc. etc. etc., so you always wait forever to get something done.
• Strikes, all the time.
• All English/American movies and TV shows are dubbed in French. I prefer watching VO (Original version).
• The French don't give a crap about the laws; example: if there is a handicap parking space, without a doubt someone will park there who isn't handicapped.

What are some other pros and cons that I didn't think of? I could go on and on but those are the first things that came to my mind.

I think my list of cons about the US would be longer though...

Elections 2008!!

Yesterday I FINALLY got my absentee ballot in the mail! Just thought I'd make it clear who I'm voting for:


Obama/Biden!!!

Just a reminder for everyone who hasn't thought about voting, do it!!

FAUCHE!

Just like to note my current account balance because I think it's kinda funny, or maybe its more like scary:

85,43€

until October 25th (if the Rectorat keeps their promise).

A special thanks to my boyfriend for paying the bills this month! *muah!*

Football match!

When I say football I of course mean, "soccer". I went last week with my boyfriend and his friends for my first match in France. It was Sochaux vs. Lorient. Unfortunately it was a match nul meaning it was a tie, but it was still cool nonetheless. I've only been to one soccer game in my life and it was back home. I don't even remember anything about it because I was really young, maybe about 11 years old. I don't care much for sports but if I'm there and I watch it from the beginning then I really get into it.

I just have to comment on the obscenities shouted out by the supporters. So funny:

Rentres chez ta mère!
T'es nul!
Va te faire foutre!

just to cite some examples... :)

The economy is going to Sh**

Ok i'm really getting scared about the future of the economy. I have a $20,000+ debt from college loans with a rising interest rate and apparently jobs that seem somewhat interesting are stuck at 35k per year. Now I don't know where I'll be a year from now, even 9 months from now, (hopefully/maybe still in France because at least here the country will take care of your medical costs if you have a nervous breakdown!) but it's something that I need to start thinking about immediately. I'll have a steady salary with the assistantship for the next 9 months but I can put very little of it into savings. I just wish I had financial reassurance after the assistantship....

In other news...the Sarah Palin/Joe Biden debate is on tonight but I'll be sleeping since it will air at 2am France time. It's going to be painful to watch tomorrow morning...

Oh and Christophe and I are getting the apartment!! I'm so excited. I can't wait to put up pictures after we've moved in and decorated it! Yay!