i am back in bordeaux!! teaching middle school english with a giant backlog of blogs (how's that for alliteration?) scribbled crazily on the back of grocery receipts and train tickets and my little black notebook. here's just a bit of what i've been up to since i've been back in france. more to come!

october:

i have become an undisputed expert at the minute details of my own life. i am spelling my parents' names in my sleep, i know exactly how to pronounce "boston" so as to get "ah! les celtiques!" as a response, i can write my sister and my cat and my best friend on the board without even turning around.  (i have also spent approximately an hour teaching my kids the difference in pronunciation between "ellie" and "haley," because everyone thinks my cat is my best friend and laughs ridiculously)

 i have been teaching middle school in france for two weeks, and i have just finished the "who's the blonde girl?" presentations to my sixteen classes. normally, it begins as such: "hello everyone, my name is kim, i am the english assistant, i am american…" cue the fanfare, the audible gasps and whispers that are definitely not in a six inch voice. most english assistants come from england, as it is only a train ride away rather than a transatlantic voyage. the professors, as well, have all learned their english from semesters in london or leeds (except i do have one who spent a semester in indiana, of all godforsaken places, and there is a giant billboard of las vegas hanging precariously over the blackboard) so a real live american is quite the exciting prospect for kids in a rough and tumble suburb of bordeaux. 

in every single class, i am faced with twenty-two hands frantically waving at me as if they couldn't possibly make it through the day if they don't ask me their very pressing question.  this very pressing question, of course, completely escapes them as i pick one at random (though i have a soft spot for those wearing vintage american flag sweatshirts) and he looks at me with very big eyes, mouth open slightly, not expecting to actually be called on.  i can see the wheels turning in his head as if his brain were going through the x-ray machine at the airport, he turns to look at his friend, a desperate SOS call that is promptly dismissed because he doesn't know either, followed by wild pleas to the professor in rapid-fire french. "madame, i don't know, i don't remember, i don't understand" she shakes her head, no french here, and he looks at me again, and asks, "euhhh, what you happy day?" extremely pleased with himself, he leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, and smiles smugly at his friends - see? i can talk to the american teacher. now, it is my turn to be completely stupefied. what in the hell is he trying to say? i haven't the slightest idea. "pardon? can you repeat the question please?" i ask, desperately hoping a stroke of brilliance, or at least basic comprehension, will come over me in the next thirty seconds. "'appy birfday?" he offers sheepishly. "what you happy day?" "ohhhh, what is my birthday?" many eager nods. "april 8," i reply, happy that both he and i made it through one question relatively unscathed. 

then come the typical american questions: "do you live next to california?" absolutely not, the furthest west i've ever been is philadelphia and i'm pretty sure you can see the atlantic from there. "do you see famous people?" yeah, i have beyoncé on speed dial, let me call her up right now. "do you know barack obama?" yup. he lends me air force one sometimes. and my personal favorite: "did you come to france in a helicopter?" YES. yes i most definitely did. it's parked outside. take a look. some students don't say anything at all, as is the case of two girls in the back who don't say a word for the entire period. then, as the music plays signaling the change in classes, they shyly wander up to me, and ask in halting english, "can you take us back to america with you?" their faces, so hopeful, and their grammar, so confused, instantly make me regret all my snarky comments about beyoncé and helicopters. "sure," i say, just barely bending to their level, because they are eleven and almost as tall as i am, "i can fit you in my suitcase." they smile as if i just told them that one direction was going to be in the cafeteria, and run away, shouting "au revoir! euhhhh, non, good-bye!"

december:

i have never spent more time in a teacher's lounge in my entire life. the salle des profs is the spot for gossip and three-course lunches and drinking copious amounts of wine in the middle of the day.  i am completely serious about the wine, except sometimes it's champagne. week one, my second day of school, it was a teacher's birthday. the next time, a wedding anniversary. and the next, second semester schedules came out and nobody was happy, so therefore wine was necessary.  the last time, an angry mother wrote a nasty editorial about the middle school that was not true in the slightest, and everyone drank while it was read aloud.  the mini fridge in the room is stocked to the brim with alcohol.(i cannot even IMAGINE the uproar that would occur if this was happening in the states… granted i've never been a permanent fixture in an american teacher's lounge, so american teacher mini fridges might also be loaded with wine and i have no idea…) 

furthermore, it is essential to specify that this on-the-job drinking happens not at 5pm, when most teachers are done with class for the day, but rather 12 o'clock sharp.  the first time i was offered alcohol, my first week on the job, for corine's birthday, i refused the red wine in the little plastic flutes that hold permanent residence under the academic calendar and next to the printer paper.  trying desperately to make a good impression for my new colleagues, "oh no, i really shouldn't," i say, every inch the apologetic american, very focused on her work (and on the clock, currently reading 11:58) and then i let out what is surely the most appropriate, highly professional response, "i have class at 1." silence. everyone looks at me, stunned, and promptly bursts out laughing. "us too!" they cry. "don't worry about it, it's just one glass!" "…or maybe two…" mumbles the bald computer teacher in the back of the room, sneakily on his third glass.

february:

teaching in france really depends on the day. some days my lessons are meticulously planned down to the minute, and the kids understand perfectly, and they jump out of their seat wanting to write on the board and talk in front of the class. (side note: there is nothing fun about blackboards.  yes, they might be hipster and old-school for two seconds on  pinterest, but chalk gets all over my black clothes and coat and in my hair and i am faced with just how awful my handwriting is on a daily, very public basis and i dream at least once a week about whiteboards) 

other days, it is absolute crazy town.  i have received texts from professors thirty minutes before class, while i am on the tram on the way to school, asking me to prepare a lesson on a totally random subject i know absolutely nothing about.  once i gave an hour's presentation on immigration in the united states with absolutely no knowledge except that it cost $5 less for irish immigrants to sail to boston instead of new york city, a fact i learned from a bus driver in limerick and i still don't know if it's true. one terrifying day, i had to present the life of queen victoria of england armed only with the first paragraph of her wikipedia article. so it depends. mostly, my students are well-behaved, if chatty. i try to put myself in their shoes, at HAJH listening to some lady blabbering at me in a foreign language, and i would probably be chatty too. 

last week, however, was a different story.  first, full disclaimer, i don't know 90% of my students' names.  in my defense, i have 16 classes a week, with approximately 20 kids in each class, that i only see for an hour a week.  there's no possible way i could know all their names. it's just never going to happen.  it does, however, make me feel slightly like a baboon, because my preferred method of teaching is the point and "you!" …effective? not so much. regardless. i had one student last week who would not stop talking to the others and taking their pencil cases and tipping her chair and generally being a giant pain in my ass. she was an instigator and making everyone else mad and stumbling over themselves to tattle on her to me, entirely in french, bien sûr. "madame, she did this!" "madame, she took my eraser!" "madame, she called me this!" some days i feel more like a ringleader than a teacher, trying desperately to make sure my train wreck of a classroom doesn't derail into a catastrophe. sometimes the teachers aides come in to pick up the attendance slip at the exact moment i am trying to tame the zoo animals i call my students, and laugh knowingly, (and probably judging slightly, but i prefer to ignore that) tossing a "good luck" over their shoulders as they escape into the serenity of the hallway. 

now, let us speak of the hallway.  the girl creating a hurricane of chaos is remarkably deaf when i tell her to turn around and please read number three, but has superhero hearing when a boy in the back snickers and makes a snide comment.  she whirls around and starts yelling at him, arms in the air, hands and pg-13 rated curses flying liberally through the air (i would be much more accepting of this outburst if she yelled at him in english…) i rap on her desk and tell her once again to turn around and be quiet. she looks at me, eyes wild and thinking of her next insult, puts up her hand, and says "wait" in casual french, the tu form that should never be used with a teacher. yes, i realize i could pass for fourteen and most of the girls and all of the boys are taller than i am, but "wait" plus the hand? no way, girlfriend. that's not going to fly in my classroom. i tell her this, in english, and receive a glazed response.  they realize i'm mad, because i never shout, but i sound remarkably similar to the teacher in charlie brown (wah wah wah wah wah) to them.  i then perform the most magical of all the teacher tricks i have up my sleeve - i repeat everything i say to her in french.  now, i'm not supposed to use french in the classroom at all, in fact, i'm to pretend that i speak absolutely no french at all. this ruse worked better in september, as i have occasionally slipped up and laughed at a joke a student made in french, or responded to a teacher in french during a fire drill (in which only one out of twenty-five of my kids fell down the stairs and had to go to the nurse! success! but seriously kid, nothing is ACTUALLY on fire. cool your jets.) 

i speak sharply (i really hate the word "yell" but i'm sure it happens the days that there's no more tea and the tram is late and my kids are throwing paperclips at each other) to mariana, thanking god that she is the front row and i can see her name at the top of the paper so i can yell at her using her actual name and not just "you." i slip swiftly into teacher-mode, using words like disrespectful and un-called for and pointing very dramatically first at her, then the door, which is easily understandable in any language, and i send her out in the hallway, where there is a sliver of a window so i can make sure she doesn't use her newfound hallway freedom to escape the prison that is middle school (can you imagine the search party? all because the american teacher can't discipline her class? i shudder at the thought. multiple times a week.) the rest of the class continues swimmingly, for thirty blissful minutes and i metaphorically pat myself on the back for not being a completely dreadful teacher, until a small boy timidly asks "madame? is mariana going to stay out there the whole class?" OH MY GOD. I FORGOT ABOUT MARIANA. whooooops. i give the kids more work to do, and go find mariana in the hallway, where she's pouting impressively at her shoelaces and doesn't say another word when i bring her back to class, and instead finishes her work in record time, 100% correct. hmm. maybe i should send kids out in the hallway more often. and i won't forget about them. fingers crossed.