Post, Painters and Pens

Today (Wednesday) has been rather a long day. Not a bad one but certainly one full of petty little irritations.

To begin with, the (incredibly efficient and polite) painters arrived whilst I was still getting ready so I just scooped up what I could and headed for school to try to use the internet. I’d been at school for around 10 minutes when I heard a weird noise. It turns out that this was the fire alarm although it was incredibly different from any I’d ever heard in England – it was a drill but all the same I’m glad one of my colleagues decided to swing by the staffroom on the way out and caught me looking confused.

Students, Stalls and Salutations

Gosh it’s a good day to be a reader of my blog. If it’s a slow day where you are, you may now read back through all of the entries that I’ve only just got internet to post – they’re a captivating read, charting the twists and turns of my incredibly interesting life from my moment of arrival in France to the present day.

Alternatively, you may be thinking ‘Actually, I’m good. I have a fairly busy life and I’m just popping by’. In which case, this is the entry for you – the plot’s moved on a bit but if anything it’s only got more interesting. All readers are catered for here at Le Havr’ing a Laugh so I don’t want to catch anyone saying otherwise!

Classes, Cakes and Cell-Phones

Wednesday was an early start – even though I haven’t officially started yet, I went in to observe a few classes to get an idea of how the school works. It was interesting to see the different classes as I was always in pretty much the same set at school and haven’t ever done any work experience in secondary. The difference in attitude and ability from class to class that a teacher has to deal with is crazy.

Mobile phones are a bit of a menace in the classroom but unfortunately for the students the teachers know exactly what they’re doing and the odds are very definitely in their favour. It was a struggle not to laugh when a confiscated phone rang and the teacher answered it to tell them not to call again during lessons – the profs don’t lose.

Lunch, Legacy and Le Havre

Tuesday morning was awesome. This may or may not be related to the fact that I spent all but an hour of it asleep. At 11.30, I went to the lycée as my prof had arranged for me to have lunch with some students. It was nice to talk to some people around my age and the lunch was pretty nice too – bonus!

After lunch, I took the two buses to my other lycée. One of the lucky things about the first lycée is that they didn’t haven’t had an assistant before which takes the pressure off a bit. The second one, on the other hand, had an assistant who seems to have set quite the precedent to follow. Hopefully they’ll like what I do just as much.

I met the headteacher of the school who has only been in place a few weeks herself. In France, the longest that a head can stay at a school is 5 years so they change quite often. Although the head was the person I spoke to for the longest, it was another case of meeting a heck of a lot of people in a short time – hopefully I’ll remember at least some of their names! The teacher overseeing my timetable and my work at this school is also very nice. He’s incredibly enthusiastic and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of Le Havre, Normandy and seemingly France in general, something proved by an incredibly detailed car tour of Le Havre and the surrounding area. He also has a set of autographed Amélie Nothomb books which I’m sure some of my lecturers would love to get their hands on.

All in all, another good day.

Buses, Banks and Blunders

Having survived an entire waking day in France, I was feeling pretty good about my chances of surviving day two. I visited the lycée part of where I’m living with my prof and met what felt like ten million people in the process. It’s going to take a while to learn everyone’s name but everyone at the lycée is very friendly and helpful. It’s a great environment, plus the school has its own beehive. What’s not to love?

I would never have believed this but speaking more than one language is physically exhausting. I expected it to be mentally tough but I had no idea how knackered I would be after just two days. It isn’t so bad when you get to stick to one language for a while – in fact, that’s what dreams are made of at the moment – but the swaps can really catch you off guard. Before I can process what’s been said, first I need to work out what language it’s been said in and whilst that should be easy (one language I know, the other not so much!) it’s surprisingly confusing.

The Journey to France and Day 1!

The Journey to France!

To blatantly plagiarise Miranda Hart: ‘Hello and thanks for joining’. My last post left me fairly stressed at the prospect of the year abroad but I can now report that I am here and at the time of writing (Wednesday night), I am alive and well.

The Day the Nerves Struck...

...Or yesterday, as it's also known.

Up to that point, as discussed in my last post, I'd been a bit too cool for school about the whole 'emigrating to another country for 9 months' thing. It hadn't phased me. Life was good.

The first thing that set me on edge was having not received my grant cheque even though everyone else that I spoke to had received theirs last week. I now know that it's because the uni haven't posted it yet (that's a whole other story) but being £300 down did temporarily cause a lot of panic.

Time is a Snail

Wow, look at me being all metaphorical! In all seriousness, it seems that the closer I get to leaving for Le Havre, the slower the days are going.

I'm a bit odd in that I plan obsessively weeks (sometimes months) in advance and yet I absolutely HATE waiting - whilst other people forget their exams as soon as they sit them, I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof until I get my results. The longer I have to wait in life, the more irritated I get and the year abroad is no exception. I'm not at all nervous, something I put down to the the idea of moving to a different country being so strange that I won't believe it until it happens.