So to revise: I’m an English Language Assistant with the TAPIF program. What that means: I’m never supposed to be in a classroom alone with all 20 plus students and I’m not allowed to grade students. Really I’m here to be useful with my native American accent and my cultural perspectives.
My first week in the classroom was technically supposed to be observation, but I had an introduction powerpoint saved to my Google Drive that included my hobbies, where I was from, my family, favorite tv shows, movies, and food so several of the teachers had me present that to the class.
I definitely got a lot of reactions on the tv show/movie/food slides because then I was able to ask students what their favorites were.
Some things tend to be universal:
–People in France don’t believe yoga is a real sport either. (Because I’d always reply with “yoga” when they asked me what my favorite sport was. Sorry kids it is quite real!)
–Game of Thrones. Because well, come on, dragons:
–And even French kids apparently find Steak Tartare (my favorite French food) disgusting, but tacos are universally appreciated.
While there were several cultural differences in the classroom, what was most notable is how students can’t sit down in their seats before the teacher gives them permission. From what little I’ve seen so far I would say the French tend to be a little more authoritarian in their teaching, but then again maybe the teachers I work with are just strict?
BUT they do grade out loud, which is interesting to me. No hidden grades. When a student was giving an oral presentation the teacher took the time at the end to critique him and tell him what he did wrong rather than making notes and moving onto the next student.
The students all seemed to ask me or the teacher one question in particular though:
Student: “Madame, does Emily understand French?”
Teacher: “No, she doesn’t.”
Same Student looks at me: “Miss! Do you understand French?” (half the time this question was also in French)
I am the guy on the left.
Me: … Let me ignore that question and turn back to my PowerPoint so I don’t have to lie to you.
(Okay eventually during the week I just gave up and told them I did speak French. It was too difficult to pretend anyways! But I am there to speak English and it is technically English class so they need to be speaking English too)
Soon at the middle school I’ll start to get small groups of hardworking students to work with on anything I want/varying subjects from detective stories to job interviews.
Next week however… is vacation. Yes, you read that right. I will technically have worked for two full weeks and now I have two full weeks of vacation for La Toussaint. (All Saints Day/November 1st)
So on Saturday I’m headed off to Scotland (again) to visit my dear friend Hannah. ❤ I haven’t been to Glasgow yet, but I’m looking forward to all the curry chips (fries) and scones I’ll get to eat all week long. Then I have no idea what I’ll be doing the second week of the break, maybe I’ll just hop around France? If you have any ideas let me know!!
View over the center of town on a very cloudy dayThe belfry at the center of town–the cafe with the red tents has the cutest little terrace in the back and they have cheap wine!
I’ve tried to condense the last week into a series of bullet points to make it as easy to read as possible. SO much has happened!
I moved in
When I got off the plane I had the most massive customs line ever waiting for me (like seriously it took 45 minutes), but once all of that was over my teacher contact from my high school was waiting for me just on the other side! I’m really lucky that I didn’t have to navigate Paris with two suitcases to get to the train station because then she tucked me into her car and we drove to Dreux.
Then she gave me the low-down on all the gossip of the school the hour drive we had and when we arrived at the school she dragged me inside to meet the Principal (Le Proviseur) and half of the administrative team. Who were all quite nice and tbh I didn’t remember half of their names because I was so jet lagged. And then she brought me to my room.
Basically I’m living in the student dorms. They’ve reserved a couple rooms for teachers. It’s a tiny bit bigger than a dorm room, but not by much, but I have my own bathroom and a communal kitchen I’ll share with another language assistant and the nighttime workers who stay awake to make sure all the kids are in bed and asleep at curfew. All this is fine because it’s free.
Yes you read that right. I won the jackpot in this town.
2. Welcome dinner
On Thursday my contact from the high school organized a welcome dinner at the Italian restaurant in town & I was able to meet many of the people who work there. (And not just the English teachers) I sat next to the science teacher who also participates in National Novel Writing Month each November so we ended up talking about books quite a lot, the teacher across from me had fun trying to make me say as many French cuss words as possible, and I drank soo much wine.
I was so happy I was able to speak with people, outside of the work context and just have normal conversations *IN FRENCH.* I find there’s always a little “trial” period when new people try to figure out if I actually do speak French before they try to speak to me, but at least I got a lot of that out of the way at dinner!
3. I’ve adopted a café
Dreux doesn’t have a Starbucks. It’s that tiny, but it does have a cute little coffee shop that I’ve been to… 5 out of the 7 days I’ve been here already. The second day I came in they gave me a rewards card… and I’m over halfway already… oops?
The employees all know me… probably as the American, but well that’s fine. Plus the food/coffee/wifi is great there.
Oh did I mention that I don’t have wifi where I live?
Yeah, they don’t want the students staying up all night on the internet. I’ve got a little bit of data with my international phone plan, but for now if I need to do any heavy internet use I have to come to this café.
Besides internet surfing I have gotten quite a bit of writing done there too!
How could I not get writing done in a place like this?
4. I still haven’t started work yet.
We had our teacher’s meeting in Orléans yesterday, which was really really boring.
It might have been useful… If I hadn’t already lived in France before, so I felt a little like Hermione. #beentheredonethat
They didn’t give us any new information or give us any instruction on how to work with students. To me it seemed like a meet and greet more than anything, but at least there was free coffee?
But yeah, I’m not sure when I’ll actually go into the classroom for the first time, so we shall see. Tomorrow maybe?
5. Phone companies suck.
I’ll just leave that one as is.
Compared to living in Paris I already love this city more. I don’t feel quite so anonymous here & I’ll be able to get to know people better I think because I see the same people every single day–even walking on the street!
There’s so much more that’s happened that just couldn’t fit into one blog post! If you’re interested in keeping up with me this year, click subscribe!
Dreux is a small city of just over 30,000 people about an hour west of Paris.
I’ve got to be honest, when I got an email from my school contact claiming I was assigned to live in Dreux, I hoped it was fake. Dreux doesn’t have any chateaux and I’d never heard of the city before. I’d been crossing my fingers for Tours again, but alas.
HOWEVER, this turned out to be a GREAT thing. My teacher contact notified me that I would be able to live at the lycée (high school) for FREE (to be determined if it is actually free) which means I don’t have to go through the arduous process of finding my own apartment and applying for the CAF (a government fund you can apply for to subsidize your rent) Free is also an extra good thing once you find out that with TAPIF (the program I’m employed under) I only make about 780 euros a month. So every centime (penny) I can save means another centime I can use towards travel/wine.
Get ready for lots of Game of Thrones gifs this year.
PLUS, I’m super close to Paris without actually being in Paris. I’ve already lived in the capital so I’m looking for a different experience this time around. BUT I have so many friends who live in Paris it will be very cheap and easy for me to visit them on the weekends.
I’ll be teaching at a college and a lycée professionelle in Dreux. Aka a middle school and a vocational high school. So the experiences will be quite different AND I’m super excited for both of them, so I can get a different taste of the different public school systems.
Some questions I’ve been getting:
Are you moving to France permanently?
Nope. My contract is for only 7 months. I have the option of renewing the contract one more time IF I want to, but I have no plans yet so I should be back in the US by May.
Are you going to teach yoga in France?
TBD on if I can learn all the yoga words in French.
Are you going to marry a French guy?
Do I even need to answer this?
So Daenerys, when you start your new job in Westeros are you going to marry a Westerosi?
4. I hear you only work 12 hours a week on this program. Is this true/what will you be doing with all of that free time??
1. YES. I have a 12 hour work week. (Probably why I’ll be making very little money) and so I plan to fill my free time with writing and yoga. I have a rough goal going of writing 3 more novels this year. Yes. You heard me correctly. It might turn into 2 novels with shiny edits, it could increase. Either way I’ll be keeping myself very busy!
I have 10 days left before I leave. 10 days left of yoga teaching, novel editing, packing, and saying goodbye to family & friends. It’s starting to become real.
I’m moving back to France!
SUBSCRIBE to follow along. I also have Instagram for all the yoga pictures, but travel pictures will probably go up too.
It’s Emily here… two years later and I’m graduating college in… three weeks?!
And I’m reviving the blog because I’M MOVING TO FRANCE AGAIN!!
I have been accepted to the TAPIF program which is a teaching assistant job in France. All I know about where I will be right now is that I have been placed in the Académie of Orléans-Tours. It’s that giant region under Paris.
The “Académies” of France aka the academic departments.
This region is also the châteaux region of France and home of the Lorie Valley (think wine and awesome cheese). It was one of my top picks for regions and I am so excited to be going back!
I will find out my specific city placement sometime in June/July.
This decision was not an easy one as I had been contemplating a more permanent job here in the states that would have assured me a connection to my yoga community (oh yeah I’ve become a certified yoga instructor by the way so get ready for a whole year of yoga pictures across France and Europe) which is something that I’ve come to value profoundly this year.
Just a casual spring break sunrise headstand…
And then I realized, this teaching contract is only for SEVEN months! I’m not abandoning the permanent job or my yoga community – they will still be there when I come back.
This decision has ultimately been one of love and passion. I have many friends (soul sisters, best travelling buddies ever, and some friendship that were so hard to speak about aloud I created a blog for them) in Europe that I feel a profound connection and love for and the thought of never seeing them again has brought me to tears over and over. THIS is my opportunity to see them again and spend quality time with them one on one without the pressure of a job or a family to get back to.
THIS is my opportunity to write novel number two and maybe! get novel number one published.
Ultimately, I’ve realized that out of both decisions I would most likely come to regret the decision not to return to France. So here’s to living abroad and being nearly broke for the next year – that 40 hour grind can wait one more year 🙂
Until then… I won’t be going anywhere until September!
I invite you to catch up on all the adventures I had while studying abroad in 2014-2015 and follow me along this amazing adventure next year. Please subscribe (click Follow blog via email in the column on the LEFT!) to receive this blog’s updates via email! Also, I love getting feedback so please comment!
I know. I’m very, very behind on blogging. One weekend I was in Morocco, then I had a paper due and then it was off for a two week spring break to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Ireland and then more papers and final exams!! Now its down to my last week in Paris and I haven’t even uploaded any pictures yet.
I had been dying to go to Morocco this whole year -cross off another continent, go to another French speaking country, experience a completely different culture- the list goes on and on. My biggest problem was finding someone to go with me, because while I felt safe travelling by myself, I did not feel comfortable going to Morocco by myself. Plenty of people wanted to go to Morocco, but plenty of these people’s parents did NOT want their kids to go to Morocco for some reason? But I finally found someone to go with and we headed out on a Thursday for a quick weekend trip to Marrakech, Morocco!
Day 1:
We decided to stay at an Airbnb since we found a listing for a young yoga instructor lending out a spare bedroom and we felt more comfortable staying there that at a hostel. We arrived in Marrakech in the evening and we headed out to the Place Djemaa El-Fna, a giant square right next to the souks where they have street food vendors set up everywhere with picnic tables. Might not have been the most sanitary of food, but my host mom recommended it and it certainly was an experience.
So much cheap food. Also we definitely didn’t order the French fries…
It took us forever to get our check at the end because the guys didn’t want us to leave until the other tables filled up so that it wouldn’t look empty!
After dinner we took a quick look around the souks and then headed back to our apartment for an early night.
Day 2:
The next morning we headed off to the souks and that was an adventure in itself. Obviously in Morocco everyone knows you are a tourist simply due to the color of your skin and on the way to the souks a man started walking alongside us and talking to us. I tried to politely brush him off, but he continued to talk to us and told us that there was a shortcut to the souks if we took this side street. Since we went to the souks last night it made sense to me that there could be a shortcut in the general indication he indicated, and the man was obviously watching us to see if we would take his advice, so we headed down the street he had pointed us in and he waved us goodbye.
Then a block later he showed back up.
At this moment we were both getting slightly uncomfortable, but the man was being very polite and started to guide us through some smaller streets. Thankfully, they were all full of pedestrians and other tourists so I didn’t feel threatened, but I wasn’t quite sure what the man wanted.
So we followed him, and we followed him, and we followed forever – it was definitely not a shortcut. Then we finally made it to the souks and he led us to his shop – which was a fancy furniture shop with closed doors and he insisted that we go inside to look around. My friend and I looked at each other then quickly said “No thanks!” and bolted.
By now we were good and lost in the souks, so I politely asked some Moroccan women how to get to the big mosque with the tower. Unfortunately, I think we were both thinking of different mosques and towers because they pointed us in the wrong direction, but they meant well! After sniffing a soap vendors wares politely for a few minutes, we were pointed back in the right direction.
So then we stopped at a jewelry stand and each bought a pair of earrings after some intense haggling. Then the merchant ceremoniously told us we were all friends and told us we could each have a little bracelet for free.
A little surprised, but not one to turn down a free gift we each picked out some simple bracelets and then the man asked us to come visit his sister’s spice shop. Neither of us being mildly interested in bringing spices back, we politely turned him down and then something like this happened:
Basically he insisted on taking us, and I figured that her shop was probably just around the corner, so why not?
So then he started walking fairly quickly, far back into the heart of the souks, in the wrong direction from the exit. And since he was walking so quickly and he wasn’t turning around to see if we were following him, when a motorcycle passed in front of us, we turned around and raced back far past his shop.
That was quite enough excitement in the souks for us for one day so we left the maze of shops and headed back into the square where we ate dinner last night and we were met with this lovely sight at least five separate times:
Incognito picture because they wanted people to pay for pictures.
Just dozens of snakes and cobras out in the open. No big deal.
Oh and then there’s a monkey too
For lunch we headed over to Henna Cafe that I had heard about on trip advisor. It’s a cute little cafe that has lunch, Moroccan mint tea, and henna!
After lunch we headed over to the Majorelle Garden:
Then we went to rest at the apartment for a little bit, before heading back into the souks for dinner at a Moroccan dinner theater complete with belly dancers.
Once again: way more food than the two of us could eat!
Day 3:
The next morning we woke up bright and early for our camel ride. We went as a small group through an oasis and they even equipped us with our own scarves to protect our faces.
My camel was named Shakira, and she had just had a baby two months ago who traveled alongside us the whole way.
Halfway there we stopped and had tea and Moroccan crepes in a tent.
I have to admit, by the time we were back I was quite ready to get off the camel.
After this we had a leisurely lunch:
Vegetarian couscous with cinnamon! Yummy ❤
and went back to the apartment to grab our bathing suits before heading out way past the city center in a taxi to a Moroccan hammam that our host recommended.
Please pamper me
Once there, we were told to change into our bathing suits and we were given broken instructions in French to go into the bath room and put soap on.
So we fumbled into the Moroccan baths -which looked like something straight out of a roman museum by the way: marble fountains lining the walls and in the center of the room an additional circle of fountains with stone stools next to each of them.
Kind of like this, but with more antique detail
After debating over which container contained the supposed soap, a Moroccan woman walked in and well, started soaping us up and rinsing us with the warm water. A few minutes later she indicated that we should go into the adjacent room. It turned out to be a steam room so we relaxed in there for several minutes until the woman came to fetch us. This time there were two women and after rinsing us off with the warm water they popped off our bikini tops.
My first reaction
The shock lasted all of three seconds until I realized this was all just part of the “cultural experience” and they lead us to massage tables where they washed our bodies with soap, oil, water, and rubbed off an entire layer of skin with specially made gloves. After this massage, they washed our hair and gave us large fluffy bath towels and then led us outside the bath to a dark room where we received another full body massage.
Then a Moroccan man blow dried my hair and they hailed a taxi for us and we were on our way.
For our last night in Morocco we hunted down a recommended restaurant in the souks and ate dinner on the balcony as the sun went down.
Vegetable Tagine
Then we wandered back through the souks -spending our last dirhams on pants and scarves and then went back to our apartment to pack before heading back the next morning.
Goodbye Morocco!
All in all Marrakech was an exotic experience complete with the stereotypical snake charmers and belly dancers. But I am not completely in love with it simply because of all the negative male attention my friend and I received as foreign females. I have never received as many cat-calls in my life -and we were both dressed conservatively. I am sincerely glad I was smart enough not to go to Morocco by myself, because we were even followed a few times through the souks.
But it was definitely a positive experience and the food and mint tea were positively amazing.
Now I’m off to go take my last two exams and eat as many pastries and crepes as I can before I head back to the US next Monday!
I’ll be talking about my trip to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Ireland in the upcoming posts so stay tuned!
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A blog about a girl with a serious case of wanderlust and her quest to travel
Flooding the World 