photos

photos - Dec. 07, 2006 at 02:27 AM
ok, so im busily uploading photos and decided to explain them a bit. or, rather, to use them to initiate me talking about my life in dinan! so the problem with teh photos is that they are in reverse chronological order. i may get around to organizing them better, but in the meantime... they start (or end, as teh case me be) with my first days in Dinan. After a delightful, though exhausting 4 days in Paris playing the tourist with Anita, I took the train to Dinan. I had called the prof who was supposed to be organizing things for me to let her know when i would be arriving (a Friday), and she told me that she doesnt normally work on Fridays, but that the other english teachers, and other people would be there to set me up, no problem, and that i could either take a taxi or walk to the lycee from the train station, it wasnt far....

right. ok, its a 30 minute walk when you know where you're going, which i didnt, and its not the easiest place to give directions to, let me tell you. so there i was, after about 3 hours sleep the night before wandering around Dinan with my big huge backpack trying to find the lycee. good times. i finally found it, walked in, presented myself, got passed from secretary to secretary and everyone kept saying, oh! you're here! we didnt know if you were coming! we didnt know youd be here today! oh, l'indendante (the woman who was supposed to set me up with the apartment) is in a meeting today, oh, all the english teachers are either in meetings or not here... oh, what will we do with you??? anyway, i eventually got given a key and shown an apartment. there was evidence that another girl (apparently anotehr english assistant) had been living there, but she wasnt there (and she didnt show up until sunday night, actually, i was worried she had been kidnapped, but she was just in paris) and told, ok, have a good weekend! it was a little daunting. luckily, before being shown the apartment, i met Susan, une ecossaise, who is an english teacher here. she made the mistake of asking me, hows it going? to which i replied with total honesty: not so great! anyway, she said if i was bored or lonely on the weekend that i should find teh port of dinan because she would be there for a kayak race and i could hang out with her and her kayaking friends.

so thats exactly what i did. i have to admit, my first day or two in dinan were a little sad. it was raining, and i had no idea where anything was, and i didnt feel like exploring in the rain, so i stuck pretty close to home. the lycee is a pretty quiet, eery kinda place on the weekend, and theres not much life around. apartment buildings and houses, all pretty sad. saturday i rearranged the apartment (it was kind of a mess when i got there). oh, and saturday night i dragged myself to a movie(i knew where that was, because i passed it trying to find the lycee on friday), but other than that i was basically feeling pretty lonely. so on suday, i foudn the port in the hopes of also finding susan! and find her i did, as well as her two adorable children, Lucy adn Owen, adn her charming friends, and their charming son, Thom. It was a gorgeous afternoon! bright sun and clear skies. the port is a lovely part of town, very old and beautiful, and the place was packed with people, which was awesome! the race was a relay. its called 'les trois heures a dinan' and the idea is the go aroudn teh course as many times as possible in 3 hours. there were five people on Susan's team, so with two getting out of the kayak, two getting in, and the fifth sort of there holding things steady and helping out, i ended up being babysitter during each of the switches, which suited me fine! Afterwards, I was invited back with the team to have tea, which we took in a garden under a castle (see photos on flickr). all in all a lovely day! Sunday night, Alisa came home... so I finally met my new roommate! Neither of us knew (in fact, nobody seemed to know) if there was going to be a third. there was talk of a spanish assistant, but nobody seemed to know if she really existed or not. anyway, she did exist! and she arrived Monday. so as of Monday night I had met MOST of my new family: Sara and Alisa, my roomates, and George, teh other english assistant at the lycee.

So my impression of what i would be doing that Monday, in fact that whole week, was basically observing classes, meeting the students and teh teachers, and hopefully discussing what it was they wanted me to do for the next seven months. at this point, i really still had no real idea what my job entailed. i had been given my schedule on friday, and it appeared that i had five classes, all with the same prof, Yolande, on Monday. So I met her on Monday, and she said, would you like to come ot the class at 10 and observe? that was, literally, the word she used: 'observer;' well, her idea of 'observer' and my idea of 'observer' are a little different because we walked into the classroom, she turned to me and said 'ok, why dont you present yourself?' oh god, i was terrified. it also soon became apparent that this role of 'assisting' that i was to have in fact meant taking half the class to another room and trying to make them speak english. he. ok. so im thinking, and HOW do you want me to do that exactly? 'oh', they said 'however you want! its up to you!'

oh my. i was not feeling it. On Tuesday of that week, Alisa left for a training session in St Brieuc, which lasted until Thursday, so it was just me and Sara in the house. it was nice though, we bonded! And we went to St. Brieuc on Thursday as well, for our own training session. it was pretty brief, as far as training sessions go. but we did discover that there was another assistant in dinan, in the college (junior high), a girl from ireland. and we also met diego, the spanish assistant in the primary schools with alisa. all in all, that week was pretty long and pretty tiring. every day felt like a week in and of itself. the amount of paperwork required to work in this ding dang country for seven months is ridiculous! the things you need signed, and sent here, then there, than sent back to you... ouh la la! it was over soon enough, however, and the real fun began the following monday, when i had students to myself for the first time.........