Toulouse. Or should I say 'perdre'.

Ok so that's the worst joke ever*.

This weekend I embarked on an adventure to Toulouse with 5 of my fellow assistants here in Bordeaux. And what a voyage it was. Stress levels were high before we had even left Bordeaux train station, since a) apparently you have to composte your tickets to make them valid before getting on the TGV b) the trains involved are approximately the length of the great wall of China and c) the trains like to let out ominous fog horn noises even though they are not yet pulling out of the station. All of these things combined lead to what can only be described as a hot damn mess, with 6 girls leaping up and down the longest platform in history screaming 'just get on the DAMN TRAIN!!' As we say here in France (or at least in the new French film Hollywoo which I urge you all to go and see) 'Bon debut... bon debut...' 

Despite all that, we all got to Toulouse in one piece, and found ourselves arriving in one of the best youth hostels I've ever paid 12€ a night for. And I'm not even joking, the place was a palace! Four of us had a 4-person apartment, complete with kitchenette, bathroom and functioning shower to ourselves, which we took full advantage of! One member of the team was clearly not used to such a novelty, as when she woke up to the sound of the shower running she declared 'guys, I think its raining!'.  

Toulouse itself is a beautiful city, although I didn't take as many pictures as I should have done since it was so cold on Saturday that I couldn't feel my fingers to even try to use a camera. We also happened to be there on the weekend of the soldes, which, for anyone who is not currently in France, means 'sales', and effectively that since last Wednesday the high streets of France have been absolute chaos. As far as I can make out, they just run until the shops either get bored or run out of clothes, but that did not stop the citizens of Toulouse stampeding out across the city like buffalo. You know that its bad when a group of supposedly mature and self-sufficient 20-somethings have to resort to a buddy system when navigating the streets! Escaping the throngs, we managed to get thoroughly lost (always a must in a new city, I feel) before visiting the cathedral and an art museum in order to 'get some culture in'. After being stared down by museum staff for posing with their gargoyles (apparently the curator was not aware how much her statues looked like they were performing the dance to 'Single Ladies') and getting a little too excited by the fact that some of the statues were made of 400 year old terracotta ('but how does it work?! My plant pots don't even last one year!' one assistant cried in awe) we decided we'd had enough culture for one day and decided (perhaps unwisely) to brave it into H&M. 

Sunday was much sunnier, and since Saturday had been so hectic we decided we needed a trip to an aquatic spa. My only advice would be that if you're in a pool full of French people which has a particularly strong current then try not to swim against it, unless you wish to find yourself being blown by bubbles into the laps of at least three of them, with only the pleas of 'Desolée! Je suis anglaise...' to excuse yourself with. The steam room and saunas were also much needed and less traumatic!
Thoroughly refreshed, it was back to school this week where I seem to have gone up multiple cool points for having let the children climb all over the furniture during last week's lesson on prepositions. More than ever I am thrown bits of paper with bizarre drawings on them which I'm reassured are 'presents' and even propositioned with marriage (technically I'm not sure if it counts as a proposal since it appeared to be the future best man who was asking on behalf of his friend, letting me know that 'non, non, c'est bon, he wanted me to ask you...'). In the older classrooms we are now studying the parts of the body, which means endless games of 'Simon Says' which are taken very very seriously, and a reluctant (on my part) admittance that yes, I did know the Hokey Kokey. Inevitably, the Hokey Kokey has proven to be my most raucous lesson yet, with a grand total of 3 expulsions to the corridor and 1 trip to the medical room. Don't say I didn't warn them. In the maternelle section, where the children are 4 and 5 and just the prospect of sitting on a bench is enough to evoke riots, the Hokey Kokey has not even been mentioned. Last week I went with what I thought was a tamer number, Old MacDonald Had A Farm. Apparently this was not the case, since this week I was approached by a frazzled looking teacher who informed me that the song was a no-go, due to (and I quote) 'too much mooings'. When I arrived in the classroom even the benches themselves had been abandoned, so I knew she was serious. Instead of the (admittedly energetic) lesson of the previous week we had a calm discussion of how old we all were, and any song requests were met with a firm 'non, interdit!' So I can tick off my bucket list that I, like Madonna, the Beatles and Lady Gaga before me, have had my songs banned from the airwaves classroom. 


A la prochaine fois. 

*Because perdre is 'to lose' in French. But anyway...

Je suis la reine des cygnes!

Remember when I told you that there's a traditional French brioche with characters hiding in it and if you get the piece with the figurine it means you're the king or the queen and you get to wear a crown? Well, anyway, a teacher brought one into the staffroom today and lo and behold, what did I find in my piece but a little ceramic fish. 

All day people have been telling me 'you're the queen!!' and then chuckling to themselves as if the fact that I'm English means that I have more of a right to feign royalty than anyone else. As one 8 year old put it, 'oui, mais elle est anglais... c'est vraiment possible!' I have a feeling that there is a small misunderstanding as to how the British royal family works, general consensus today seemed to be that the eligible princes just draw from a ballot of all the girls in England and someone gets to be the Queen, but I decided not to get into it. Personally, all I could think of was the scene in Black Swan where Nathalie Portman freaks out and proclaims to be the swan queen.. maybe if they'd had a galette de rois at hand there wouldn't have been so much confusion.  

Click on it and she'll show you what I mean.

Dans lequel les seals n'ont pas appropriate lesson materielles.

Life is full of lessons. Here's one:

If you're ever using a children's book to teach French children the names of animals and various classroom actions in one fell swoop, and there's a page that says "I'm a seal and I clap my hands. Can you do it?" skip it. For the love of god, just skip past it. Perhaps go so far as to glue that double page together never to be seen again. 

Today's main event was a group of 30 riled up 5 year olds leaping around a room clapping their hands shouting "phoque! phoque!! PHOQUE!! PHOOOOQUE!"* and two awkward looking teachers peering their heads around the door to ask what exactly I was teaching their children. Great. 

*translation: "seal! seal!! look I'm a seal!!" 

 pronunciation: "fuck!! fuck!! FUUUUUUUUCK!!"

Maison sucré maison.

Bonne Année tout le monde. 

Back to France, back to the blog. Firstly, its one of my New Year's resolutions to try to stay in touch with people more, something I realised I am absolutely terrible at as I set off back to France having failed to see/speak to most of the people I should have. Just, accept this as a public apology and know that you're not alone. Anyway, I realised most of you probably didn't remember/get told in the first place that I have a new phone number (+33615265958) and that I also have barely any Skype contacts (emily.seymour91) so here's to communication. 

Now that I've finished breaking all the rules of Stranger Danger and giving out my contact details to the world wide web (if I get any texts from Russia maybe I'll figure out who you are) I don't have a lot to report except that I started school again today and almost instantly a girl ran up to me in the most secretive of manners and whispered "Emily, I'm high..." Now, while I'm aware that for some of the assistants teaching in the lycées of France this would not be an alarming or, for that matter, unusual statement to make, this student in question was only 8 years old. After a little investigative small talk I realised though that, of course, what she meant to say was "I'm fine," and that this term is shaping up to be just as amusing as the last. I also found a tiny figure of the Virgin Mary in my dessert, which is apparently a 5th January tradition similar to putting a ring in a Christmas Pudding, except that the French fill their brioche with the extended cast of the Nativity scene, complete with sea animals and dinosaurs (no, I'm not just referencing Love Actually, a boy in CP proudly spat out a plastic tyrannosaurus rex) and when I asked the teachers about it they pointed out that a) there weren't enough wise men to prevent fights breaking out in the dining room so the dinner ladies had started to get creative with their figurines, and b) it was more laïque to have action figures present at the birth of Christ. 

That is probably all for today. I leave you with the information that Pére Noël delivered me a book of Franglais which has inspired me to start writing English idioms in French. Points to anyone (obviously not who do French!) who can guess today's title. 

À la prochaine fois.

Feliz Navidad.

December seems to have flown by, and I only have 1 more day left until I, like many an easy listening singer before me, will be coming home for Christmas. Marks and Spencer's had better be well stocked with Christmas food because I can tell already that it will be my first port of call when I arrive in England. I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the food or the fact that there will be ample shopping bags available for me to use (you would think that by now I would remember to bring my own bags but hélas, I forget every time. Oh putain). My last few weeks in Bordeaux (for 2011 - there are still many more to come) have been as exciting as ever. Today two of the other assistants here and I visited the vinyard that belongs to my host family and they gave us a tour around. We saw all the vines and the machinery and the barrels and got a step by step lesson on how to make a true Bordeaux wine. Not wanting to rub it in or anything, but we wore sunglasses. We bought a case of wine to split between our families (you're welcome) and they let us keep the one we had opened to taste (I am now an expert wine taster so if anyone needs a lesson just ask) and so later we finished it the best possible way - in bed watching the original Grinch and the Glee Christmas special.
A week ago a few assistants and I ventured bravely into the daunting world of extracurricular activities and joined a choir in Bordeaux, which was definitely an interesting experience. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the French answer to Mr Schuester was a tiny, tiny (I think he was shorter than me) French man who made us do some crazy vocal exercises. We started off singing in Latin which was ok since we were all in the same bateau (this is apparently a French saying too, who knew) but when we changed to a French song I think its safe to say we were no use whatsoever to the choir as a whole. The whole thing was fun though and the old ladies (because sadly in France choirs are made up of retired women and not beautiful misfits) were thrilled to have us. One was so overwhelmed with excitement that when a man sneezed during a song she had a fit of giggles which brought the whole rehearsal to a standstill. Perhaps its because I'm a hilarious person, perhaps its because I spend my days with the under-10s, but these days I seem to evoke this particular reaction more than I would like. 
Talking of the under-10s, as any of you will remember from your own primary school days, about a week before the Christmas term ends an unspoken understanding passes through the staffroom and everybody agrees that nobody has to do any work any more. I was a little disappointed to realise this week that, contrary to what I believed aged 8, this has less to do with the Christmas spirit warming the hearts of the teachers and making them realise that times tables have no place amidst the magic of advent, and more to do with the fact that a) everyone is tired, b) the book of lesson ideas has run out, and c) the photocopier needs a holiday as much as anyone else. Cue the Christmas-themed English lessons which have not failed - how could they? - to provide amusing anecdotes. First of all, we've just finished learning about the family and so all the children are familiar with the game of 'Happy Families'. They've just spent a good two weeks asking each other, 'Do you have the father?' 'Yes, I have the father,' and so on. Father Christmas in French is Pére Noël which is an exact translation. So when I held up a picture of Father Christmas and asked them if they could work out his name in English I expected a little cognitive action to take place and for them to deduce that 'pére' is father and 'noël' is Christmas so.. Father Christmas! but alas, that was not to be. Almost every class I've asked has shouted out 'Daddy Christmas!' and it's so hard to tell them that 'no, that sounds wrong on all sorts of levels..' The most fun Christmas word has definitely been 'baubles' which has produced raucous laughter when I say it first, and gets misinterpreted as 'boo-bels' 'bay-bels', 'boo-bools', 'boo-boos' and many many more. Its fabulous when you have a box of baubles of all different colours and a naked christmas tree and give each child in turn a specific colour of bauble to decorate the tree with, and then to tell the rest of the class what colour it is. 'This boobel is gren', 'this beeble is poople' etc etc. It takes all of my energy to refrain from what a fellow assistant so eloquently describes as 'losing my shit' which is something members of her CP (Year 3) class regularly do and have to be sent out of the room to 'calmes-toi'. 
The next best thing about Christmas in primary school is the song singing. 'We wish you a merry Christmas' definitely takes the prize for the most played, since everyone can say it. They now 'wish me a merry Christmas' whenever they see me in the corridor which is sweet. The next favourite is 'Feliz Navidad' and the fact that it is in Spanish rather than English does not concern them in the slightest. When I ask them what they want to sing they all scream 'Feliz navidad, Feliz navidad!!' and I just stand there looking bewildered. 'But, guys, that's not English that's Spanish...' I plea. 'Bahhh... oui,' is the response. Let me just take a second to talk about 'Bah...oui.' When we were taught that 'oui' means yes in our very first French lesson, a vital part was omitted. Because no French person ever says 'oui'. In order to determine what sort of a 'oui' it is, they have a handy 'baaa' which goes immediately in front of it. This is going to be hard to type out but there are 4 main ones. There is a 'baah-oui?' which suggests 'ummm yes I think so but don't quote me on that because hey, I'm just making this up as I go along'. There is 'beeeehhoui!' which means 'well yes of course you ridiculous human being why would that not be the case just stop talking now its hurting my ears.' There is 'baaahoueh' which means 'yes but really I don't care at all,' and finally there is 'beeh...baah..beeh... oui' which is just them taking a really long time to decide on their answer. The 'baaahoui' I received when I told the children that 'Feliz navidad' is not in fact an English Christmas carol seemed to be suggesting 'well its not French so really I don't care what language its in but its fun to sing...' It turns out that singing in Spanish is actually a nice break from all the English teaching. Jingle Bells is a firm favourite too, but only after I drew a 'onehorseopensleigh' on the board to explain what it was. Not that they sing anything other than 'Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, ohwadshjsdghdjgasfhaiehjeshdg HEY!!' But at least they know what it means. 
So, I wish you a merry Christmas, feliz navidad, joyeux noël, speak soon, some of you I'll see soon!! Pictures of all the Christmas spirit in Bordeaux tomorrow. 

New profile picture.

Today was a very Christmassy day and I thought my blog should reflect that. 

Fashion history has been made.

Bloggers, friends, family, Russians who I don't think know me in real life, today has been a good day, and here is why. 
I present to you, from the country which has previously brought us the LBD, the beret and the monochrome horizontal stripe, fashion history in the make:

I honestly think this is one of my favourite purchases of my entire 20 years on this planet. Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Bordeaux. And if you can't beat 'em join 'em, right?


Disclaimer: this is for a fancy dress party not for real life, don't try to follow in my trendsetting footsteps in lectures or the workplace.