Wednesday, I sat in on another BTS English class, and it made me feel really stupid. Seriously. He passed out an article, and it wasn't exactly an easy article... it was about advertising and had words like stormtroopers and media revolution. Yes, easy for me to understand, but not necessarily for the students to understand. What did they have to do with the article? They had to read it out loud in French, meaning they had to translate it as they read! So hard! Sure, it probably would have been easier for me if it was French to English, but still... I was always taught not to translate things directly. When I told the teacher that after class, he said that it's a big part of how English is taught here. I believe he said that the BTS exam has a translation part on it as well.

Wednesday night, we went shopping for Thanksgiving foods, and I made my aunt's stuffing ahead of time. It came out delicious! I was surprised at myself. I can't cook. At all. So I thought that it would come out a total disaster, but nope... it was great!

Thursday, I had a bunch of classes. I hope you all thought of me when you were at home enjoying your day off! I did Thanksgiving lessons for most of the classes, so that went well. The DP6 class was pure and utter hell yet again. Their teacher has decided to try switching the groups next week. That means that when I'm working with another teacher, I'll have that group, and when I'm alone, I'll have the semi behaved group. There were a few students who were exceptionally well behaved (one apologized in English for the rest of the class again and then tried to hold a conversation with me in English... for his age and level, that was surprising!), so I made sure to get their names and told the teacher how great they were. She wasn't surprised at which ones were behaved and which ones weren't. But at least if she deals out any other punishments, those few won't get in trouble.

After class and recovering from the DP6 group, I went down to the train station to meet Mira at her bus. She came to Chauny to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. We cooked up the rest of the food... turkey (not a whole turkey though), homemade mashed potatoes, our sorry attempt at gravy, and corn. It was all delicious, I must say! A little taste of home (especially with the stuffing!) in France. And it was also Guy's and Viany's very first Thanksgiving! Katie and her family joined us for wine and cheese before the meal. It was really nice to meet them. Mira also brought us some chocolates, which were amazing! Some of the best chocolate I've ever had.

Friday was more classes. No Black Friday shopping for me... I missed that. I never get up for the earlybird specials, but I still like going shopping that day. However, I did get to actually sit in on a class with the secondes I really like instead of just taking a group of them, so that was fun! It also helps me to get a feel of some of the quieter students' English ability when their teacher forces them to talk.

Friday night, we had a dinner of leftovers... wow, it really is like Thanksgiving. We also went out to a nearby pub. We were pretty much the only people there, so of course, they were really curious about the random foreigners in Chauny. I don't think we'll ever be able to go out in this town without getting a hundred questions from the locals. But the best part of the evening? There was a dog there. She was so cute and sweet. It was the first time I've pet a dog in two months! I was so very happy by the end of the evening. I love dogs. I think we'll definitely be going back there.

Yesterday, I did some wandering around of town. I went to the park that finally just opened and read my book for awhile, but it was kind of cold so that didn't last long. There were a lot of people out and about in town, because there's some special contest or something going on through the local merchants. Like if you shop in certain stores, you receive an entry to be entered to win something or another, I think.

Katie and Hart came up with a plan to go out in St. Quentin for the night. The plan was to take one of the last trains and then stay out until the first train in the morning. I wasn't too keen on the idea, especially when we ended up getting on the train with no tickets (train arrived right when we got there), but I'm glad I went. We went to a bar that Guy near through his tennis friends. It was cool, and there were a lot of people there and people our age! Though I do think that I saw one of my students there. Dot, one of the assistants who lives in St. Quentin, met up with us as well. I don't think I've really seen here since orientation. Guy's tennis friends also joined us. There was some sort of crazy concert going on in the basement of the place. It was fun... though it became a little disturbing by the end. Won't go into that.

After that, the intention was to go to a nightclub, but Viany and I decided to go back to Chauny with Guy's friends. In the end, everyone decided to go back to Chauny, because according to Guy's friends, the nightclubs in St. Quentin are horrible. Here was the fun part... there were seven of us in the small five seater car. Now that was an interesting ride! But it was free, it was raining, and we got back to Chauny at 3am, hours before planned. Katie and I were the last people dropped off, and we got to talking with the two guys. They're really nice. I think we stood outside for an hour talking (in the rain) to them. One of them even used to be a student of my contact person! They made fun of our accents, but it wasn't a mean gesture, it was more hilarious than anything else. "Bicyclette" was their favorite word to mock us with. It was so funny! And the other big thing was the family the one guy created. He told us that Jackie Chan was his father, Amelie Poulain was his grandmother, Janet Jackson his sister, and Michael Jackson his brother. It was messed up and hilarious and the constant joke of the rest of the conversation. Good times.

Today is Sunday, so no big plans. Well, dinner at the other assistants', and Guy's friends are hopefully joining us. I really hope they come!

Oh! My contact person gave me some of his homemade jams and honey the other day. It was so nice of him! I tried the strawberry jam last night, and it was heaven! Seriously. Amazing! It had actual strawberries in it! I'm going to have to tell him how much I enjoyed it!

Wow. I feel very long-winded in my posts. Do I share too much? I don't want to bore you all!

Pictures
Just a few pictures from Thanksgiving and the dog at Saturn's Pub