under the shade of a koolaba tree

So the stage is over and I’m back in Amiens. It was a great two days, not because we learned anything about anything, (although I did learn just a wee bit about teaching children, like hitting them, although technically not allowed, still happens, and it is fine to shake them a bit. CRIKEY!) but because we got to meet all the other assistants in the whole department, and most of them were from the UK or Germany or Spain. I fell in w/an Aussie girl, 2 guys from Kentucky and a boy from Brighton…and a girl from SEATTLE!

I met several more people who are in my city, and now that I know where some of the assistants are I realize how fortunate I am not to be somewhere where the cows outnumber the people and there’s one bus that leaves the town per day. If that.

The days were full of rapid-fire French and I have a huge stack of paper work I don’t understand but need to fill out, and the nights…well, two lads ( I am allowed to say this now ) from Ireland must have bought out a winery and threw a party in someone else’s room.

The aftermath the next morning was interesting, breakfast was quite vacant but I came out mostly alright, although I did earn the appellation sleeplessinseattle (cannot describe how fast the boy from Galway talked, I cannot WAIT to hear someone from Cork!) and have a disturbing tendency to speak "half-British" and end all my sentences with a knowing "yeah, yeah" (or just yea? if it’s a question). It’s amusing to think that we’re all teaching English but after two days we realized that frankly we don’t speak the same language, at all.
The next night the same thing happened, and then we all got on the bus this morning and went back to our towns, still kind of fragile and bewildered and in the dark. I knew this program was horrifically unorganized when I signed up for it, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. Everyone told their story of yeah, they have an apartment but no water or electricity yet, or they’ve been living in Paris because they still don’t know what city they’ve been placed in, or what. But given that we’re all a bit shell-shocked and in the same situation (dans le merde) we bonded rather quickly. Too bad we all live miles and miles apart. E-mails were exchanged, so hopefully I will see some of my favourite people again.

Not sure what’s going on this weekend, I meet with primary assistants and teachers at 1:30 Monday to see when I start teaching. May get a hamburger w/one of the guys from Kentucky, and search for non-tacky, non-ridiculously $$ jeans as mine are already too big (yay! I think.) A trip to Paris on Sunday might be in order. I need books in English badly.

Here are pictures of wherever we where, I don’t think I ever learned the name of the town:

ok so once again no pictures will post... :-z it was coastal & pretty, just take my word for it.

Bloody oath. Wacka-doo!