another longwinded post

I think Mondays are going to be my new blog updating days.

Although nothing really much happened this past week. I did a lesson that Hannah created with my 1st year students using film scripts. It worked like a charm. I about died when one of the very weak students said the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" with perfect deliverance even though he had no idea what film it was. Also, having 21/22 year old guys act out Rose/Jack scenes from Titanic? Priceless!

Last week also marked the debut of French Coffee with one of the guys who is a regular at English Night. He wanted to do the same thing for people learning French. Of course, only Denise and I showed. But it was fun. And he's a nice guy who is slowly edging his way into our circle of friends.

Thursday, I was out at the uni waiting for my private lesson who never showed. I found out today that the others in his class told him I left the country even though I had insisted that no matter what happened with the class, I could still give him lessons. Guess Jane and I overestimated their level of English when we explained the situation to them the other week. Poor guy feels horrible though. I'm sure he'll apologize many more times this Thursday.

Friday, Denise and I headed to Amiens for the day. Of course, in true Picardie fashion, it rained, so we were a bit limited in what I showed to Denise of the town. However, we managed to have a yummy lunch of crepes (I had my favorite called La Ch'tis - ham, potatoes, and stinky maroilles!) and met up with some English assistants for coffee. Unfortunately, my former students and I once again failed at meeting up. One mixed up his class schedule, and the other... well, he had a little too much fun celebrating St. Patrick's Day the night before and couldn't get out of bed. His message to me was cute, but I'm still trying to decide on the appropriateness of him ending the text "Big kisses". I realize that's a direct French translation, but he shouldn't be saying that to me in French either.

That night, I went to hang out with some of the members of the Twilight Zone outing. We had a good time. Basically, we just went to a bunch of local bars where they seemed to know everyone. I was given a warm welcome at each place because of them. New group of friends??

Saturday, we took advantage of the nice weather and went for a walk. I ran into Jane and her family in town, and we all (except Jane) shared that awkward moment of "do we do the bise?". I never do the bise with Jane, but the rest of her family is French, so no one knew what to do. Ugh. I hate being awkward. Saturday night, we all went to a local concert and met up with the crazy English teacher. It was a good night filled with lots of laughs and music. Good times. Hopefully, there are more of these sorts of things.

Today was my last real lesson with my 2nd year students until after the break. Next week, they're doing presentations for me, then they have exams, and then another week of presentations before the two week break. I really like these students, but I find them exhausting. I have to do most of the talking all of the time no matter how much I try to get them talking. I'm going to enjoy this break from actually teaching them.