my students range from annoying to incredibly sweet

The rest of the week wasn't quite up to the hilarities of St. Patrick's Day, but it was great nonetheless.

Thursday's classes went by smoothly. We had two fire drills within 10 minutes, so I think some of the students were up to something. And seriously, the French use fire drills as a smoke break. I saw several of the same people have a cigarette during each of the drills. A little ridiculous in my opinion! During the second one, I was with two of my adult students, and they started talking with me a bit. They're so nice. C. also came over carrying a sign from one of the doors in the school. That was a little weird...

At dinner, I was talking to A. and C. Nothing weird there. Then, I see a confused expression on A.'s face as he's staring at the table in front of us. I look up to see my ever so charming BTS students making eyes and waving at me. They continued this through all of dinner. When I got up to get more water, they all turned to watch me. Since they did this during our class last Friday, it left me with a sense of foreboding that this was what I would have to endure for two hours this week as well.

I spent the evening chatting with A. He's such a sweetie. It's so hard for me to believe that he's younger than my little brother. It just doesn't seem possible.

Friday morning, sure enough, my BTSers were up to their antics. If I tried not to look at them, I'd just see amused expressions on the other students' faces or they'd eventually call out my name. They're not being mean, they just think it's funny. C. came into the class at one point, said hi, and then pinched me! He said it was because I wasn't wearing green! I had to remind him that only counts on St. Patrick's Day. He was just trying to be funny. Didn't help with my BTSers.

After my morning classes, I ran into my one student. I had talked to him the night before on Facebook since the boys (mostly because of him) got into trouble the night before. He immediately tried to explain himself to me when he saw me thinking C. must have told me something. Why did he feel the need to do that? It dawned on me right after that his teasing and questions aren't him just being annoying, but he actually thinks everything is true.

At lunch, I saw this adorable student from the 1GE. Lately, whenever he sees me, he breaks into a smile and starts waving. He asked me if I was coming to class that afternoon, when I said I was, he beamed at me.

My afternoon classes flew by. Only one of the LV2 students came, but I had planned the lesson, so it wasn't some boring picture/text from the book. It went by quickly. During the last half an hour, C. came in and joined in. I pointed out the word "beach" in the article and asked him to pronounce it for me. The whole time because a very "educational" end of class of listening to an Offspring song on C.'s cell (he had been trying to sing it at dinner one night, but I had no idea what song he was getting on about), chatting about inappropriate words, and just laughing. One teacher + one assistant + one surveillant (+ one poor student) = la folie! Loved it!

Going to the 1GE, I passed A. in the hall. We chatted briefly about the afternoon and the weekend, and he was amused be the fact that I was headed off to one of Claire's classes. But the 1GE are relatively calm and nice. Two of the groups did their hilarious skits, and then they had to correct their quiz. Claire told me I could go, but the one student's face fell completely. He just looked devastated. I said I'd stay, and he perked up immediately. How could I not stay?

Yesterday, I went in to Paris to meet up with Anne for some shopping. We hit all the big stores on Rue de Rivoli, doing some damage there. Then, we got falafel for lunch and ate it in front of Notre Dame. It was so yummy, and it had turned into a beautiful day, so that was a lovely time. We bought some gelato (which included a very theatrical experience by Anne) on our way to meet Emily. Delicious! The three of us decided to head to the SOS used book sale. On the way there, we stopped at Pierre Hermé on the Champs Elysées to take advantage of free macarons day (with donation). I tried a caramel one, a white truffle with grilled hazelnut one, and another one with chocolate and something else. All were incredible. We were going to get more throughout the city, but Anne and I were too lazy to wait in the lines at the other places, so we opted for Happy Hour cocktails instead. All in all, a great day in Paris!