Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry

Bienvenue

It’s been an unusually social time these past couple days.

30 sep :: First day…

…I arrived at a reasonable time and caught an early-ish train to Gisors, the town I’ll be living in for the next seven months.

The school assigned me a professeure référante which is basically a handler. She makes sure that I understand everything I need; she organises my schedule; she made sure I would be able to make it to Rouen for the introductory meeting of assistants de langue.

01 oct :: That was…

…day two. All day, nearly, spent in Rouen.

Two meetings helped explain the sorts of things we would need to do. Our handlers are supposed to keep us on track so that all of it is completed in time.

There are bits to have done by the tenth, and others to have done already. For some (notably, those of Indian or Chinese origin) immediate action was required to validate visas. For most of us, including me, that is not necessary until three months have elapsed. I did mine the next day.

I made sure to get me phone sorted as well, so that I would be mostly self-sufficient early on, and so that I wouldn’t have to pay 5.99€ a day for internet access. That’s more than I’ve budgeted for food.

Applying for the Caisse d’allocation familiales, basically welfare, needs to happen as soon as possible as well. The first rent-help payments arrive the second month after signing up. I’ve started the process, but I have not finished yet.

02 oct :: Day four…

…I slept ‘till eleven.

I was supposed to go meet with some of the teachers quite early and get to handle some administrative tasks with Mme la prof référante. Instead, I took a walk around town and then went to see the administration myself. I met the administrator charged with assistants, as well as the one who handles keys, etc. I had been given keys to my apartment, but not to my letterbox. I had been awaiting a package, which didn’t get delivered, so I was rather impatient to get access to the letterbox. They didn’t have the key just then, so that would be handled the next day. As would be a lunch card so that I could eat at the canteen. I also made a complaint about the shower, which leaks onto the floor. They got right on it.

I tried to make myself something to eat at my flat. It took two hours to boil the water using the concave heating plate on the induction stove. Ended up with not quite hot-enough egg soup with not quite-boiled enough pasta. Needed salt.

03 oct :: The fifth

…day began a two week period of observation.

I met Mme P, the prof référente, in the morning, and we stopped by the administration again. I met the proviseur¹ as well as his secretaries, and with one of them I went through the process of obtaining la carte vitale².

I followed Mme P to meet several other teachers, and to get to know the school. I met several who were very excited to have me in their classes. Learning all their names might be a problem, but we’ll get there slowly.

The students seem more at ease than I remember being or seeing others being except in the best of classes in high school. The students are well-behaved, even those that are not. In all of the classes I have observed so far I’ve only seen three or four students who consistently showed no or little interest in the materials and spent their time not paying attention.

Mme P and I got through most of the administrative tasks faster than expected (partially because I’d started some of the processes yesterday) so we were able to run to the insurance company and get my contracts signed before lunch.

I got to eat lunch in the canteen, and to experience a bit of déjà vu in remembering how things work. It’s a different experience, and not simply because of the quality of the food.

Two hours of English classes with Mme CRAPANNE.

After classes, I headed back to my apartment.

This apartment is far to big for me.

04 oct :: 6-ethyl 2,2-Methylhexan-1-yl

I learnt more today about nomenclature than I recall learning in all my biology and chemistry classes. The teacher taught by going through examples and taking the time needed to respond to student inquires about why things were named as they were, and what it would be if this or that change was made.

It is, well at this point, was the fifth day.

Friday was a rather full day. I met Virgile, a history teacher, in the staff-room/teachers’ lounge and spent the first two class periods as he went over maps with them. The course will eventually touch on world history, economy, sociology, &c. But first, the students have to be able to read a map critically.

Is a given map a good map?

• What is the title?
• What is the purpose of the map?
• Does the title correspond to the subject material?
• Is the message of the map clear?

In order to critically read a map positioning; colour, number, and size of indicators, labels, and boundaries; relative sizes; presence of arrows; (relative and absolute) scale; and yet many more factors can and should be considered.

Then I sat through another of Mme P’s classes. After that Mathilde was waiting on me in the salle des profs and from there was yet another English class. This one was quite fun, though. Each week (many of these students have four hours of English each week) a student is asked to present something to the class in English. This time it was a song by Marshmallow called “Happier”. I learned a lot about the song, as I usually do upon actually thinking about a song I’ve heard many times. There are some undercurrents to the song that are not immediately evident if you don’t put the pieces together.

I went to a science class next.

Nomenclature.

Actually, it was a thoroughly interesting hour. It wasn’t the binomial nomenclature that I expected. Instead, it they learned how to build the scientific name of a molecule, be it an ester, an alcohol, an aldehyde, an amine, &c.

Actually, I could probably draw an of those things now, which I could not have done before that class. Je dis pas que j’obtiendrais une bonne note si je passerais le contrôle, mais bref, j’ai beaucoup appris, et d’une manière impressionante.

Then I went back to Mathilde’s class. Actually that was an invitation outside of my schedule. She lived for six years in New York as a journalism student. Her English is quite good, and she loves getting to speak it. We get along quite well, and it has been great fun talking with her; so, I agreed to hang with her after my class. She had a final class that day of seniors – des élèves en terminale – who she thought would be interested in talking with me.

She was right.

Three of them volunteered to give oral presentations that day (before they realised what I was there for) so we listened to that and I took some notes. They all gave admirable readings, some with more information, some with better pronunciation.

Then I took the floor and they got to ask me questions³

05 oct :: mc saturdaaaaay

Ce mat je suis allé à la banque pour comprendre pourquoi ma carte bleue ne marche plus. C’était pas trop difficile, et en fait on me l’a expliqué très facilement. La carte à été résiliée au mois de novembre pourque je n’ais pas de frais sur le compte. On m’a commandé une nouvelle carte, mais elle n’arriverait qu’après une petite semaine. Du coup, je ne suis pas sûr comment je fais pour verser l’argent sur mon compte. Je suis censé pouvoir le faire au guichet. Mais quand j’y suis allé ce matin, il m’a semblé qu’ils ne voulaient pas prendre mon argent. Je dois y aller essayer encore le lundi après-midi.

Ça déjà aurait pu prendre beaucoup de temps mais en fait je suis sorti de la banque en moins de quinze minutes. Il y avait une femme assise en attendant qui se plaignait qu’on l’avait fait attendre près de vingt minutes pour son rendez-vous. Ce n’a pas été si long pour moi non plus.

Je suis sorti de la banque, et ensuite je me suis décidé d’aller faire les courses quand même. J’avais dépensé quatre-vingt euros encore une fois, (le plupart donc pour verser au compte SocGén, mais évidémment ça n’a pas marché).

So I went to Carrefour⁴ – basically Wal-Mart – to do some shopping. I spent 10€ on two 500g bags of muesli, a small jar of Nutella, and a notebook. I forgot to bring a notebook that wasn’t waterproof except for my journal intime which I don’t really want to use for taking notes in class. I’m already pretty likely to fill it up this year as it is.

The other night I spent a few hours at Eddy the neighbour’s house talking with him and his wife, Angelique. They have been truly wonderful, and they asked me over for dinner tonight. So around six o’clock I went round and asked what time they’d like me over. Was eight too late? No, alright then that would be perfect.

So, I went around eight to find Eddy cooking choucroute, an Alsacien dish of sauerkraut with several meats. Cooked with two wines for twenty minutes and a pinch of pepper, the sauerkraut was delicious. A small glass of white wine accompanied it, and normally, I was assured, there would have been a cheese afterwards. But since that was forgotten, there was a tarte aux pommes to finish it off. I was offered a bit of coffee as well, as is tradition, but I declined it since I was still savouring the flavours of the meal.

Eddy was quite proud of having made it himself, rather than buying a pre-prepared sauerkraut. He knew just the recipe to make it work, having asked his mother for it that afternoon. We talked a while, and then it was time to go. A handshake, a kiss by the cheek, and out into the night, cool outside, feeling warm on the in.