back to chauny...

Tuesday morning was really difficult for me. I did not want to leave Aix. I broke down to (a very sick) Vero, and she did her best to make me feel better. And Nicole (her friend) called, so I also talked to her some before I left. But the upside, it looks like I am going down there for Christmas. Most people I know are either going home or their family is coming to France for the holidays, so I was afraid of being alone somewhere, but hopefully, I won't have to worry about that now. Vero was like it might just be the two of us sitting in bed on Christmas eating cheese, but that's fine by me!

Both Vero and Nicole kept sending me text messages for the rest of the day as I was traveling back to Chauny. That made me smile a lot. Plus, Vero's messages were so funny about how she was going to die from her cough. She loves to exaggerate!

I did not miss Chauny one bit... okay, maybe as I was traveling back and just wanted to arrive home instead of dragging my luggage with me everywhere, but once I was back in my room... not too thrilled at all. I'm trying to make the most of my situation here, but it's difficult.

Yesterday, I finally got my butt in gear and applied for my carte de sejour (residency card). I know, I know, I waited too long and my visa expires in less than a month, but it's over and done with. I did it at the mairie (city hall), so the process took two minutes, so I feel stupid for waiting. Now, I just have to wait for the Prefecture to send me my recipisse, which is a paper proving I started the process, and it will allow me to leave and come back to France if I want. I spent the rest of the day shopping for groceries with Viany. Whereas I take two minutes to choose a cereal and some snack food, it takes her hours and hours. I was kind of bored, but she did make a very yummy meal for our little Chauny assistants back from vacation reunion dinner.

Today, back to class. Some classes went better than others. I had class alone with the dreaded DP6 students. I'm so not cut out for working with children like them. I spent half the time trying to get them to behave. There was one student who was really intelligent and polite. He seemed interested and did all of the work quickly, and I felt bad that he had to sit there while I tried to corral the rest of the class. He even apologized after class (in English!) for the actions of the rest of the class.

Tomorrow, I have five hours of class in a row. Shoot me now. It's going to be a long afternoon. I kind of hate how I have like 9-10 of my 12 hours on Thursdays and Fridays alone.

Saturday, I'm going to Paris. There's another train strike that starts next week, and it looks like it'll last a decent amount of time as pretty much all governmental workers will be going on strike in the next two weeks. I want to get out of Chauny while I still can, so Paris it is! Oh, and when the strikes hit, there will be fewer students, so that will mean that I will have less to do.... and if the teachers I work with go on strike, that means, I will have nothing to do. This could get very boring stuck in Chauny with nothing to do. Keep your fingers crossed that things get figured out pretty quickly.