Monday, January 31, 2011
Chef d'oeuvre
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tonight's Homework
Katherine and I just finished watching what may be the greatest (and most ridiculous) movie of all time: The Princess Bride. And guess what--it was for homework! About a week ago my students at Fracasse went to see the movie (I'm not sure how the school justified that as an educational activity, particularly since I don't think it was in English), and today when I picked my CPs up for English they were coloring a picture of their favorite scene from the movie. Marion, who reminds me of Ramona Quimby, asked me how to say the Princess Bride in English as we were walking to my classroom, which led to a discussion of the movie in general. I told her I had it with me in France, and she suggested that I watch it tonight and then draw a picture of my favorite scene to show her tomorrow. She was so cute with the way she suggested it that even though it's not usually the students who assign the homework I had to oblige. Plus, I don't really need an excuse to watch the Dread Pirate Roberts best ROUS-es, return from partial death, and storm a castle to win back the Princess Buttercup.
Katherine can tell you that I spent the entire movie saying "This is my favorite scene", but because a) I can't draw and b) I didn't think Marion would understand why I drew the marriage scene (I doubt the priest's ridiculous voice was rendered very well in the French version) I decided to draw the fire swamp, complete with Westley climbing out of the lightning sand, a blast from the fire, and (of course) and a Rodent of Unusual Size (ROUS). And I don't think I'm the only one to prefer that scene, since I saw my CP buddy Elliott's paper and it was covered in fiery blasts. I guess some things have a universal appeal.
Katherine can tell you that I spent the entire movie saying "This is my favorite scene", but because a) I can't draw and b) I didn't think Marion would understand why I drew the marriage scene (I doubt the priest's ridiculous voice was rendered very well in the French version) I decided to draw the fire swamp, complete with Westley climbing out of the lightning sand, a blast from the fire, and (of course) and a Rodent of Unusual Size (ROUS). And I don't think I'm the only one to prefer that scene, since I saw my CP buddy Elliott's paper and it was covered in fiery blasts. I guess some things have a universal appeal.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Zombie attack
There are some days when nothing of interest seems to happen at school. Today was not one of those days.
-Brigitte, who teaches MS and is one of my favorite teachers at Breney, was sick today and all of her students speculated on whether she would ever return to school. Children amuse me with their ideas on illness.
-Meanwhile, Zoltan (one of my GS kids) threw up in the classroom and all of his classmates felt the need to tell me about it, even though they had just heard the other kids tell me. Odd.
-Alessio (also GS) finally came back from Italy (where his dad lives) today, and when the teacher asked him if he goes to school when he's there and he responded no, several of his classmates explained "Of course not! There's no school in Italy." This led to a brief discussion of where school does and does not exist. I was glad to be there so that I could explain that we do have schools in the US, Nathalie explained that there are schools in Australia, and we speculated on whether they exist in the desert. The consensus was probably not.
-I wish that every unit I taught was as fun as the animals one that I am just finishing up. We've been able to play a lot of games (like charades!) with it and I can tell the kids really know the animals' names.
-I was talking to the kids about their English teacher from last year, Patrick, who apparently sometimes used a cane to help him walk and learned that two of my students used to try to steal his cane from him and hide it. Mael told me that those two kids were probably going to end up in prison when they were older. Egad!
-My students are very confused by the fingerless gloves that Benjamin gave me for Christmas. I don't think a day has gone by without a student asking me where the rest of my gloves are.
-And finally, a huge herd of them pretended to be zombies both when we were walking back to the classroom and at recess. I pity those poor teachers who have to try to teach despite zombie attacks led by 5 year olds.
-Brigitte, who teaches MS and is one of my favorite teachers at Breney, was sick today and all of her students speculated on whether she would ever return to school. Children amuse me with their ideas on illness.
-Meanwhile, Zoltan (one of my GS kids) threw up in the classroom and all of his classmates felt the need to tell me about it, even though they had just heard the other kids tell me. Odd.
-Alessio (also GS) finally came back from Italy (where his dad lives) today, and when the teacher asked him if he goes to school when he's there and he responded no, several of his classmates explained "Of course not! There's no school in Italy." This led to a brief discussion of where school does and does not exist. I was glad to be there so that I could explain that we do have schools in the US, Nathalie explained that there are schools in Australia, and we speculated on whether they exist in the desert. The consensus was probably not.
-I wish that every unit I taught was as fun as the animals one that I am just finishing up. We've been able to play a lot of games (like charades!) with it and I can tell the kids really know the animals' names.
-I was talking to the kids about their English teacher from last year, Patrick, who apparently sometimes used a cane to help him walk and learned that two of my students used to try to steal his cane from him and hide it. Mael told me that those two kids were probably going to end up in prison when they were older. Egad!
-My students are very confused by the fingerless gloves that Benjamin gave me for Christmas. I don't think a day has gone by without a student asking me where the rest of my gloves are.
-And finally, a huge herd of them pretended to be zombies both when we were walking back to the classroom and at recess. I pity those poor teachers who have to try to teach despite zombie attacks led by 5 year olds.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Nutrition Facts
I've heard people make all sorts of comments about the alleged French paradox. Some attribute it to the consumption of appropriate portions, others to the less sedentary lifestyle, but something that I never hear mentioned is the clarity of the nutrition facts on French food packages. That's because they are completely useless, if they even exist at all. For example, your 30 g Kinder Bueno bar tells you how many calories there are in 100g of the product...but not 30. Or take the seafood spread I had on pita bread tonight at Felix's house. The ingredients for both products were listed, but there were no nutrition facts to be found. Go figure.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Back by popular demand
So it seems that I haven't been the most faithful blogger thus far in 2011. In my defense, I got sick my first weekend back and things have been very busy ever since: teaching, translations, service d'anglais dinner invites, and the post June 30 job search. Still, I apologize for my negligence.
Until today we had been enjoying some unseasonably beautiful weather here in Deauville--blue skies and temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s. We took advantage of this on Saturday afternoon by taking a nice hike around Beaumont en Auge, a small town around 20 minutes from here. My pictures will tell you more than I can, but it was very pleasant walking alongside the haras (stud farms) and fields with cows wrinkling their brows at us.
Also of note is that this evening we attended the mayor's state of Deauville address (advertised as his New Year's wishes) at the CID--we were tempted by the enormous galette des rois that had been advertised as coming after M. Augier shared his wishes with us. I'm not sure that we would have attended had we known that the wish sharing was going to take well over an hour (we were standing the whole time), but now that I'm seated I'm glad we attended because he specifically spoke about the service d'anglais and our work and mentioned all of our missions. This was particularly neat because there were tons of other services that he didn't mention at all (for which I am very thankful) and because it shows that he knows what we do. Our translations were specifically mentioned, which is gratifying because they're probably my least favorite part of the job because I feel like no one ever uses them. Au contraire, apparement. I wish I had my camera with me so that I could show you all how enormous the galette des rois was. I would say it easily had a diameter of 6 feet. I'd like to see the oven it was baked in!
Finally, a word about my students. For some reason my CE1s have been very taken with me lately, whereas previously they were always nice but not particularly interested in engaging with me outside of class. Now Romain asks me almost every day as we walk to lunch if we can hold hands ("On se donne la main?") and they beg me to sit at their table at lunch. [Note: the students typically hold hands when they line up to go someplace, and it's normal for us to hold the kid's hand who's next to us as we walk to class or lunch.] They're really cute at lunch, all wanting to know how to say things like Obi Wan in English and asking me what my favorite Star Wars movie is, and today Alexis asked me if I was born in Paris like he was. Nope! I'm not going to take myself too seriously, though--the CP who was in love with me last semester, Marin, has pretty much forgotten about me, so I know that it's only a matter of time until ils se fichent de moi encore (they don't care about me anymore).
Until today we had been enjoying some unseasonably beautiful weather here in Deauville--blue skies and temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s. We took advantage of this on Saturday afternoon by taking a nice hike around Beaumont en Auge, a small town around 20 minutes from here. My pictures will tell you more than I can, but it was very pleasant walking alongside the haras (stud farms) and fields with cows wrinkling their brows at us.
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| The view of the coast from Beaumont. Deauville is in the little dip you see about 2/3 toward the right on the horizon. |
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| Beaumont en Auge |
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| Half timbered houses in Beaumont |
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| One of the many happy farms we saw during our hike |
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| The road ahead... |
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| I'm not sure why these people had a huge barrel in their front yard, but I thought it was impressive. |
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| Taken as we walked back up the hill to retrieve our car in Beaumont |
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| A happy horse on a haras (stud farm) |
Finally, a word about my students. For some reason my CE1s have been very taken with me lately, whereas previously they were always nice but not particularly interested in engaging with me outside of class. Now Romain asks me almost every day as we walk to lunch if we can hold hands ("On se donne la main?") and they beg me to sit at their table at lunch. [Note: the students typically hold hands when they line up to go someplace, and it's normal for us to hold the kid's hand who's next to us as we walk to class or lunch.] They're really cute at lunch, all wanting to know how to say things like Obi Wan in English and asking me what my favorite Star Wars movie is, and today Alexis asked me if I was born in Paris like he was. Nope! I'm not going to take myself too seriously, though--the CP who was in love with me last semester, Marin, has pretty much forgotten about me, so I know that it's only a matter of time until ils se fichent de moi encore (they don't care about me anymore).
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Back in the saddle again -OR- Bonne Année! Bonne Santé!
I've always enjoyed book titles that have two parts--maybe I'm just indecisive--but I'd say that the above is an apt assessment of how I've spent 2011 so far. For those who've been away, let's review:
December 18-31: I was HOME! That was very lovely. Below you will find things that were nice about being home, such as friends, family, and snow. Not pictured: Scrabble games, cookies and other baked goods (and food in general), a fully stocked pantry, flannel sheets, hugs (sadly lacking among the French), piano, Dick Van Dyke...
January 1, 9 am-January 2, 2 pm: From Frankfort to Lexington, Lexington to Chicago O'Hare , O'Hare to Paris Charles de Gaulle, CDG to Gare St Lazare, the gare to Deauville!
January 2, 7.30 pm-January 3, 7.30 am: My first dodo a Deauville. I guess my trip took it out of me.
January 3 to present: Teaching and taking care of my Tuesday afternoon ward. I wasn't particularly enthused about going back to work on Monday morning, but I would say the first part of my title is true. Moreover, I'm excited about what I have planned for my students (with Mom's help--she always comes up with good ideas) and my coworkers have been nice to be around. I've probably had at least 8 people tell me that they were worried that my flight had been grounded because of the snow situation at CDG, which was nice of them, and I've been told the second part of my title (Happy and Healthy New Year!) by about 1000 people. (That's pretty impressive considering that Deauville's winter population is 8,000.)
In other recent news, I went with Katherine and Catherine this afternoon to see Les émotifs anonymes (Shy people anonymous) at the movie theater. It was really cute and really enjoyable and had the added bonus of featuring the French version of "I have confidence" from the Sound of Music. And on that note, let the next 6 months begin!
December 18-31: I was HOME! That was very lovely. Below you will find things that were nice about being home, such as friends, family, and snow. Not pictured: Scrabble games, cookies and other baked goods (and food in general), a fully stocked pantry, flannel sheets, hugs (sadly lacking among the French), piano, Dick Van Dyke...
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| Cuppa reunion at 3rd Street. Kit seemed not to be pleased about my return. |
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| Here's another thing I missed: firm handshakes with eye contact. Kit and I learned the proper technique from Mrs. Brumfield's Professional Career Development class, and the knowledge has served us well. |
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| Holding down the 747 fort for us while the kiddos are away |
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| Denim Dad in hibernation mode |
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| I could have used a 19th century camera to take this picture since Colin's present opening technique tends to take a little while. |
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| Dad compiled a nice list of the presents he got us to ensure they were opened in the proper order. |
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| My 1st grade letter to Santa. Click on the photo to enlarge it and discover what a good speller I was. |
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| White Christmas |
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| I'm not sure why BFO's looking so skeptical, but here we 3 kings of orient are. |
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| Hoppy went sledding in the snow. Very dangerous activity for our long eared friend. |
January 2, 7.30 pm-January 3, 7.30 am: My first dodo a Deauville. I guess my trip took it out of me.
January 3 to present: Teaching and taking care of my Tuesday afternoon ward. I wasn't particularly enthused about going back to work on Monday morning, but I would say the first part of my title is true. Moreover, I'm excited about what I have planned for my students (with Mom's help--she always comes up with good ideas) and my coworkers have been nice to be around. I've probably had at least 8 people tell me that they were worried that my flight had been grounded because of the snow situation at CDG, which was nice of them, and I've been told the second part of my title (Happy and Healthy New Year!) by about 1000 people. (That's pretty impressive considering that Deauville's winter population is 8,000.)
In other recent news, I went with Katherine and Catherine this afternoon to see Les émotifs anonymes (Shy people anonymous) at the movie theater. It was really cute and really enjoyable and had the added bonus of featuring the French version of "I have confidence" from the Sound of Music. And on that note, let the next 6 months begin!
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