Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers!
Like everything Thanksgiving in France, I'm sad that I'm missing the holiday back home. It's my favorite meal of the year. This year, I'm sadder than usual. Normally, I would be making Thanksgiving dinner at some point (even if not on the actual day), but this year, the assistants at the other school (aka the ones with a kitchen) are kind of... well, to remain polite, I'll use the word lame. It fits, but I'd prefer to use something stronger. So unfortunately, no Thanksgiving meal for me this year. At all. I was also really looking forward to introducing it to Roxy. I've tried hinting at the Frenchies I know, but since I'm not one to ask straight out, I don't think any of them got the hint.
I made the mistake of teaching the secondes about Thanksgiving which led to me describing the food and making me crave it even more. Oops. Oddly, it was the Pro Energie students who cheered me up after that class. There's one that has always made an effort to talk to me even though I don't work with them, because they are in the Pro section and are adults. Well, I was talking with Claude when they all came in. The one surprised me by coming up behind me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders (which led to the normal "Who the hell is touching me?" reaction since I didn't see him coming), and just started chatting with me. He then refused to let me leave and insisted I stay. Claude was cool with it, so I did. They were all nice, and my new "friend" sat next to me.
Of course, the euphoria only lasted a few moments. By the time I was down at La Rotonde for my coffee, I was back in my stupor. I sent a text to C. telling him that he had to make me laugh at dinner, because I was really sad. Giving that mission to C. is an easy task, because he just has to look at me in his own way, and I laugh. Sure enough, he came into dinner, came right up to me, did the bise, and then cracked some joke. He gave me a concerned look and said that he received my message and would do his best. We had talked about my lack of Thanksgiving plans when we hung out on Monday, so he already knew how upset I was over it all. He even wished me a "Happy Thanksgiving" in English while A. asked me if it was the American version of Christmas. Why do people always ask that? We celebrate Christmas as well! But C. succeeded. I was at least happy during dinner.
Despite the rain, Roxy and I decided to go out and look at the newly illuminated Christmas lights around town. That was a nice Thanksgiving surprise! My amazing new camera took some gorgeous photos, and I'll share some of them once I get motivated enough to put them on my computer.
Now, I need to decide if I'm going to get up for my 8am (and 9am as it's a two hour class) tomorrow. It's with the BTS, and the BTS students who live here have already skipped out. I'm wondering if the others will show or not. C. and A. thought that I shouldn't bother, but I don't know if Claude would agree with that...
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