april vacation coming up

Robert is arriving in a week!!!! Insanity!!!!
Im about to be on vacation for two weeks again, surprise, surprise. And Robert is coming to visit - awesomeness!!! And there's a slight possibility we might go to Amsterdam. Well, actually, its quite likely that he will go, and there's some possibility I might join him.
After vacation I only have two weeks and one day left of work! Im in the process of planning a short trip to Germany, and then on my way home. So, for those of you that miss me, I'll see you fairly soon!!!

films with students

students - Mar. 16, 2007 at 05:27 AM
So I think I'm actually starting to really enjoy this teaching gig. And, strangely enough, I think Im actually going miss some of the little buggers I stand in front of in the classroom.... ah que la vie est bizarre. Belle, mais bizarre! I watched the movie Bloody Sunday yesterday. It was excellent. I highly recommend it. It's not an easy watch, but it's well worth it. It was an outing organized by the school so I watched it with about 150 students and 5 or 6 teachers in the local cinema. Afterwards they had a discussion, in the cinema, passing around microphones, and I was totally impressed by the students: by what they had to say, by how well they expressed themselves, by how willing they were to speak using a mic in front of 100 or so of their peers. Sure, it was only 10 or 12 or those 100 that I was actually impressed with since it was 10 or 12 that actually spoke, but all the same. So I'm still at a bit of a loss as to what to do this summer/next year/ with the rest of my life. If anyone hears of any interesting jobs, feel free to let me know!!

Summer days

summer days - Mar. 15, 2007 at 05:18 AM
its been like summer here lately! Beautiful and sunny and warm... but not too warm, just a slight little nip in the air. We took advantage of it this weekend, cut loose from school and Dinan and had a girls weekend away. We went to Vannes, a town about 2 hours away on the south coast of Brittany. Its kind of like Dinan, in that its got a wall, and ramparts, and lots of old medieval houses. But its different, too. I liked it a lot. They had a big beautiful garden and a big beautiful port! Its on the Gulf of Morbihan, or Morhiban, I can never remember, which is a beautiful little strectch of coastline. the Gulf itself is full of islands and we went out to one of them on a ferry to walk around for the afternoon. It was a gorgeous, sunny afternoon that just made everything brilliantly beautiful. That night we had a feast of Chinese food (we are all a bit sick of galettes) and went out to a club called 'salsa latina' in teh hopes, naive as it turned out, of dancing salsa! (we had taken a salsa class the day before during the lycées 40th birthday party). but no such luck. for a place that called itself salsa latina, they didnt play a single salsa all night long. most disappointing. anyway, the next day we went to a nearby town, Carnac, which is the site of these huge megaliths. Actually, we went to a few megalithic sites; the Carnac alignments was one, which is these fields of megaliths lined up in rows, over 4000 of them in all, I think. And another place, Locmaquerer or something like that, which has some big ol' tombs, and a 20 meter long megalith, which has now follen and broken into four pieces. In all, it was all very impressive, and very mystical... imagining the people that actually built things out of stone. We lunched on the coast in this cute touristy town adn then drove home, quiet, tired, and thoroughly satisfied with teh weekend. Ill try to add photos soon, of the tree and of the megaliths, cause they are both photo-worthy.

magnolias

magnolias - Mar. 14, 2007 at 04:16 AM
I have discovered that I am in love with Magnolias. There is this beautiful old 100 year old magnolia tree outside of the church in Dinan, and it is perfectly stunning. I keep trying to take a picture, but I keep forgetting my camera. I walked beneath it the other day, and the petals were dancing gently to the ground in the wind, like leaves in the fall, but more graceful..... perfect.