subject lines taunt me

The snow is officially all gone. The last of it melted during the night! What does this mean? Besides that it is now raining? (Ahh... love Picardie!) It's warmer out! We've gotten above 0º (over 32º for you on Fahrenheit), and it feels so good! It's strange how before that felt so cold, but now it feels almost mild.

The end of last week went well. I did have a problem with a student though. Well, not personally... it was just rude almost, I want to say. He got chewed out by Claude though. And Sn. assured me later that it happens and that it wasn't me. I ended up with only two of them in a group for that class, and I flat out asked them "Vous me detestez?" (Do you hate me?) which pretty much caused the two of them to break out into a chorus of "Non on t'aime!" (we love you). For that, I let them out of class way earlier than I should to go to lunch, but they promised to be quiet. Plus, we had run out of things to say to each other. Other than that... uneventful classes. Well, my class with three students didn't show yet again, and they got in trouble with Carole. I feel bad. They have to come this week or they will have a quiz. It's their free time. I wouldn't want to come either.

Friday afternoon, we hung out with Kylie and her son. She is such a sweetie. Not only did she drive us home, but she also took us to Intermarche and back. And Will was having a blast since he got to push a little cart. I wandered off to another aisle, and when I headed back I could hear him going "Shannon? Where are you? Shannon?". So cute!

Saturday, we went to Paris for the sales. I didn't think I'd have much luck at all. Last year, I only bought a pair of shoes and sunglasses. We went to H&M, and I didn't like a thing... until I found a nice long sweater (almost a dress) for 15 euros! Sweet! And then of course the shopping bug had bit me. I bought two cardigans and leggings at Zara, all for less than 20 euros. I also got some makeup at Sephora... eye shadow/shimmer that was more than half off and some Bare Minerals eye shadow that was on sale. Good deal! After that, we were sick of the crowds so we stopped at a cafe. Then, we went to St. Michel, because I wanted to get a book from the bookstore there (more about that later maybe) before heading to Breakfast in America for dinner. Natasha ate her burger with a fork and knife and couldn't understand why I found that strange. We missed a train back to Chauny by like five minutes, so we had to wait around almost two hours for the next one which led to an umm.... interesting experience in the Gare de Nord.

Sunday, Carole invited me over for the afternoon. She made us a typical dish from her region which was delicious! She had also bought a ton of cheese the day before. I tried some brie with truffles (amazing!), a cheese that is from her region, and some of my favorite Camembert ever. Yum! She had also made a galette des rois. Such a good meal. We spent the entire afternoon chatting and listening to music. She also showed me a music video which is hilarious (or at least is if you know Picardie). I'd link it, but the embedding is disabled for the video. It's Kamini's Marly-Gomont if anyone is interested and want to youtube it. Just to give you a quick example of the lyrics:

Je viens d'un village paumé dans l'Aisne en Picardie
Facilement 95% de vaches, 5% d'habitants
Et parmi eux une seule famille de noirs
Fallait que ce soit la mienne
Putain un vrai cauchemar

(I come from a lost village in Aisne, Picardie
Easily 95% cows, 5% inhabitants
And amongst those a single black family
Most be mine
A real nightmare)

Anyway, I was over her place for hours, and we spoke almost the entire time in French. The only English we had was when I was stuck on a word which wasn't too often. That was very good for my French. She said that I have improved so much since last year, and that I do the French "R" very well unlike most anglophones. Umm... hold up. What? Me? I think not. Claude would beg to differ. Although, he's just working on me to make it sound more natural. Hmm...

Like today, while Claude drove me into town, he was torturing me with getting the "R" exactly right. I kept laughing which didn't help, because I just don't know how to make the noises he's making. Eventually, I could make the sound quickly before losing it. We were also working on the "D" (it's more forceful but shorter than in English) and the "D" and "O" combination. Of course, the word he was using for this was "dodo" which I find funny anyway. When someone tells me they're going to "faire dodo", I just can't help but laugh. But I was getting it right after a bit. Hey, with all this work, I'm finally saying "La Rotonde" like "une francaise", so he can no longer use that as an example with the students of me having the wrong rhythm/pronunciation. So this week, I'm supposed to work on getting those sounds to seem natural for me to make, and then he's going to come up with something else.