The Wednesday after classes started back up in January, we had, you guessed it, another stage! Naturally, I was super excited to make the trip to get to Bourg-en-Bresse for 8am since it takes like minimum 2 hours to get there. But I got up and got to the bus and then to the train.
The waiting room was (SHOCK) open but my train went from the other side. So after I waited an hour after arriving with the bus, I went to the other side (which is always outside) to wait for the train. It was supposed to arrive at like 6:42 or something. At 6:46, the station operator came out and told us that the train was running late. No way, man! You’ve blown my mind. Luckily, it was only running 4 minutes late according to him. Interesting. Because there was no train pulling up as he shouted to us from across the tracks. In any event, within the next 5 minutes, the train pulled up and we all boarded. I set myself to thawing out.
After getting to Ambérieu, I made my transfer to the bus, which wasn’t cancelled! And that was thrilling! (Because since I was without credit card, if I needed to take a cab, it was gonna be pretty rough. Even though my mom had magnanimously wired me 200€. But still, I wasn’t rollin’ in the Benjamins anymore. (I have never been rollin’ in the Benjamins.) After I arrived at the Bourg gare, I started walking with my Google walking directions.
I turned right and gave a big ups to the place where I had gotten my naked X-Ray as I walked down the street. I was walking with a purpose and saw a group of 3 familiar looking people at the intersection up ahead. It was Mohsin, Heather, and Emily—some other assistants—also trying to use their Google directions to find the place: Rue Magenta. Thinking they knew where they were going (they didn’t), I started walking with them. The first thing I told them was that they were facing the wrong way—I was sure we needed to continue to the left. So we did. As soon as we turned around, we found Trudi, Katie, and Helen—the assistants who live in Bourg—also looking for Rue Magenta. Awesome.
The Bourg assistants were actually trying to scrape the frost off of a street map behind plexiglass casing. It wasn’t going well. So we just figured we’d walk with their Google directions. All of these directions were the same, mind you. There wasn’t any “Aha!” moment as we ran into each other. So we walked all the way down a street until we found a shop to ask for directions. The woman told us to go right at the second stoplight as we went back up the street we had just walked. So we did. Except the second streetlight was the intersection where I had found Heather, Mohsin, and Emily.
So we went back to the cased map and scraped until we could scrape no more. We realized we were right across the street from the street we needed. Naturally, the street name changed across the intersection, but there was no signage to note the name change. Makes sense, right? We wandered the backstreets until we found it.
When we walked in (about 45 minutes late), Livia, Stephanie (the other assistant in Belley), and some other girl were just sitting there waiting for us. As was Jacques, one of the coordinators at Livia’s high school in Bellegarde. He looked at us as we sheepishly walked in and said, “Vous êtes en retard.” (You’re late.) Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Mohsin had a more polite response: “On a été perdu.” (We were lost. This actually translates to “One was lost” because in French, you can use on to mean “one” or “I” or “we.” It’s weird. But means that you can get away with knowing less verb conjugations since on takes the same verb as il or elle.)
Then they started the presentation. It was basically the most useless presentation of all! It was an hour long discussion of eTwinning, which is this website that connects students in Europe. It’s a great idea. But for most of us as assistants, it was not useful at all considering we focus on oral things. Also, the lack of technology that many of us have in our schools (me included) would make it legitimately ludicrous for me to think that I could possibly plan a lesson around a website. But anyway, we sat through the discussion.
Later, Katelin arrived. (He did not tell her that she was late.) She said that there was a problem with the trains. As soon as she sat down, she revealed to me that she had just overslept. So I guess the problem was that the train didn’t have her on it. After the eTwinning guy left (and he had quite a mustache on him!), Jacques took over and asked for suggestions of ways to improve the Teaching Assistant Program. He broke us into groups to discuss and then report back with results. We did as we were told.
While in our groups, we basically all griped about common grievances and shared successful teaching strategies. When we came back, each group presented with, naturally, a lot of the same things coming up. Awesomely, though, every time that a group made a suggestion, Jacques basically said that the problem was our fault. So that was super helpful and left us all in a great mood. One idea that was suggested was that they move the stages from Bourg to Lyon or somewhere that’s more easily accessible for everyone. He basically said no because “the people who live the closest are always the latest.” Then he had the audacity to point to Stephanie and say that she works in Belley but that she had been able to arrive on time. This would have been a great point except Stephanie doesn’t live in Belley. She actually lives in Lyon and commutes to Belley every day. (Maybe now you’re all, “Dumb Jess! Why don’t you do that!?” The answer is that it’s way more expensive to have an apartment and commute every day. I’d also have to coordinate with teachers to come and pick me up from the train station every day. That just seemed like too much hair pulling. So here I am at the Internat.)
Blah blah blah more happened. The other girl who was there had a story similar to Stephanie’s in that she’s an Anerican student at uni in Lyon. Except she’s lived in France for so long that she has some kind of accent when she speaks English that makes her sound like a foreigner. Now, I recognize that when I speak I sound a bit affected, but if anything, there’s a little British in my American. This girl, though, people were whispering, “Where is she from?” while she was talking. Craycray!
Eventually, Jacques freed all of us from his pleasant grips, and we all deuced. Mohsin had plans to make it to the train straight away, but the rest of us headed out for some Thai food. Mohsin missed his train and met up with us after we’d finished. The food was so good. After lunch, Mohsin, Katelin, and Heather headed off. The rest of us decided to go for a wander around Bourg.
We stopped at the cathedral, which was pretty and built in the 1500s. It should be known that we went to the cathedral because I had said in our group email that I really wanted to go to there. That’s because I had been under the impression that this massive building with what looked like a golden roof was the cathedral. False, though. That’s actually the monastery that they told me was too far to go see with the amount of time left. Tant pis. So we went to look at the theatre after the cathedral, and then went to pet shop. Where they had some adorable dogs and crazy fish!
We still had time to kill, so we went for macarons. I only got one, and obvio I got the craziest flavor they had: avocado banana. It was strange, and I’m not sure who thought that those flavors needed to go together. But eat it, I did. Then we went to a phone store because Katie was having issues with her phone. It was basically like she had a posse. Tight. Also waste.
Afterwards, Emily and I headed back to the train station. Then, as always, back to Belley.
The following weekend, I stayed in Belley. Luckily, we had beautiful weather! I went to the market and got some tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and concombres (cucumbers) to make a delightful salad that happened a few nights that week. I also went to the library to check out a movie: Beignets de tomates verts (Fried Green Tomatoes). While I was at the market, I ran into Marc who invited me to dinner chez lui since he was having some friends over. Excited to be considered a “friend” or even someone that could be presented to his friends without mortification, I accepted and went to buy wine like a good guest.
Then I went for a run. Never did I ever think that I would be running where I could hear/see chickens in people’s backyards. But life does funny things to/for people. Also, there are some crazy ass hills in Belley, so this was more of a “run when it’s flat and walk when it’s so steep you might die” kind of workout than a regular run kind of thing.
When I got back to my room, I saw a text from Marc saying that dinner wasn’t going to work. Naturally, I was crushed. So I responded that I hoped everything was okay and that maybe we could do it another time. He said yes but that he had broken up with his girlfriend during the break but that they were still living together, which made things really complicated. Whoa. WAY more of an explanation than I was expecting. So that was that. And I stayed in with Towanda and my salad.
It’s over!
Jess
The waiting room was (SHOCK) open but my train went from the other side. So after I waited an hour after arriving with the bus, I went to the other side (which is always outside) to wait for the train. It was supposed to arrive at like 6:42 or something. At 6:46, the station operator came out and told us that the train was running late. No way, man! You’ve blown my mind. Luckily, it was only running 4 minutes late according to him. Interesting. Because there was no train pulling up as he shouted to us from across the tracks. In any event, within the next 5 minutes, the train pulled up and we all boarded. I set myself to thawing out.
After getting to Ambérieu, I made my transfer to the bus, which wasn’t cancelled! And that was thrilling! (Because since I was without credit card, if I needed to take a cab, it was gonna be pretty rough. Even though my mom had magnanimously wired me 200€. But still, I wasn’t rollin’ in the Benjamins anymore. (I have never been rollin’ in the Benjamins.) After I arrived at the Bourg gare, I started walking with my Google walking directions.
I turned right and gave a big ups to the place where I had gotten my naked X-Ray as I walked down the street. I was walking with a purpose and saw a group of 3 familiar looking people at the intersection up ahead. It was Mohsin, Heather, and Emily—some other assistants—also trying to use their Google directions to find the place: Rue Magenta. Thinking they knew where they were going (they didn’t), I started walking with them. The first thing I told them was that they were facing the wrong way—I was sure we needed to continue to the left. So we did. As soon as we turned around, we found Trudi, Katie, and Helen—the assistants who live in Bourg—also looking for Rue Magenta. Awesome.
The Bourg assistants were actually trying to scrape the frost off of a street map behind plexiglass casing. It wasn’t going well. So we just figured we’d walk with their Google directions. All of these directions were the same, mind you. There wasn’t any “Aha!” moment as we ran into each other. So we walked all the way down a street until we found a shop to ask for directions. The woman told us to go right at the second stoplight as we went back up the street we had just walked. So we did. Except the second streetlight was the intersection where I had found Heather, Mohsin, and Emily.
So we went back to the cased map and scraped until we could scrape no more. We realized we were right across the street from the street we needed. Naturally, the street name changed across the intersection, but there was no signage to note the name change. Makes sense, right? We wandered the backstreets until we found it.
When we walked in (about 45 minutes late), Livia, Stephanie (the other assistant in Belley), and some other girl were just sitting there waiting for us. As was Jacques, one of the coordinators at Livia’s high school in Bellegarde. He looked at us as we sheepishly walked in and said, “Vous êtes en retard.” (You’re late.) Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Mohsin had a more polite response: “On a été perdu.” (We were lost. This actually translates to “One was lost” because in French, you can use on to mean “one” or “I” or “we.” It’s weird. But means that you can get away with knowing less verb conjugations since on takes the same verb as il or elle.)
Then they started the presentation. It was basically the most useless presentation of all! It was an hour long discussion of eTwinning, which is this website that connects students in Europe. It’s a great idea. But for most of us as assistants, it was not useful at all considering we focus on oral things. Also, the lack of technology that many of us have in our schools (me included) would make it legitimately ludicrous for me to think that I could possibly plan a lesson around a website. But anyway, we sat through the discussion.
Later, Katelin arrived. (He did not tell her that she was late.) She said that there was a problem with the trains. As soon as she sat down, she revealed to me that she had just overslept. So I guess the problem was that the train didn’t have her on it. After the eTwinning guy left (and he had quite a mustache on him!), Jacques took over and asked for suggestions of ways to improve the Teaching Assistant Program. He broke us into groups to discuss and then report back with results. We did as we were told.
While in our groups, we basically all griped about common grievances and shared successful teaching strategies. When we came back, each group presented with, naturally, a lot of the same things coming up. Awesomely, though, every time that a group made a suggestion, Jacques basically said that the problem was our fault. So that was super helpful and left us all in a great mood. One idea that was suggested was that they move the stages from Bourg to Lyon or somewhere that’s more easily accessible for everyone. He basically said no because “the people who live the closest are always the latest.” Then he had the audacity to point to Stephanie and say that she works in Belley but that she had been able to arrive on time. This would have been a great point except Stephanie doesn’t live in Belley. She actually lives in Lyon and commutes to Belley every day. (Maybe now you’re all, “Dumb Jess! Why don’t you do that!?” The answer is that it’s way more expensive to have an apartment and commute every day. I’d also have to coordinate with teachers to come and pick me up from the train station every day. That just seemed like too much hair pulling. So here I am at the Internat.)
Blah blah blah more happened. The other girl who was there had a story similar to Stephanie’s in that she’s an Anerican student at uni in Lyon. Except she’s lived in France for so long that she has some kind of accent when she speaks English that makes her sound like a foreigner. Now, I recognize that when I speak I sound a bit affected, but if anything, there’s a little British in my American. This girl, though, people were whispering, “Where is she from?” while she was talking. Craycray!
Eventually, Jacques freed all of us from his pleasant grips, and we all deuced. Mohsin had plans to make it to the train straight away, but the rest of us headed out for some Thai food. Mohsin missed his train and met up with us after we’d finished. The food was so good. After lunch, Mohsin, Katelin, and Heather headed off. The rest of us decided to go for a wander around Bourg.
 |
| Inside the Concathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Annonciation de Bourg-en-Bresse |
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| Light bright fish! (And my dumb hands' reflection!) |
Afterwards, Emily and I headed back to the train station. Then, as always, back to Belley.
The following weekend, I stayed in Belley. Luckily, we had beautiful weather! I went to the market and got some tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and concombres (cucumbers) to make a delightful salad that happened a few nights that week. I also went to the library to check out a movie: Beignets de tomates verts (Fried Green Tomatoes). While I was at the market, I ran into Marc who invited me to dinner chez lui since he was having some friends over. Excited to be considered a “friend” or even someone that could be presented to his friends without mortification, I accepted and went to buy wine like a good guest.
Then I went for a run. Never did I ever think that I would be running where I could hear/see chickens in people’s backyards. But life does funny things to/for people. Also, there are some crazy ass hills in Belley, so this was more of a “run when it’s flat and walk when it’s so steep you might die” kind of workout than a regular run kind of thing.
When I got back to my room, I saw a text from Marc saying that dinner wasn’t going to work. Naturally, I was crushed. So I responded that I hoped everything was okay and that maybe we could do it another time. He said yes but that he had broken up with his girlfriend during the break but that they were still living together, which made things really complicated. Whoa. WAY more of an explanation than I was expecting. So that was that. And I stayed in with Towanda and my salad.
It’s over!
Jess
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