welcome to the twilight zone

Wow. It's been forever since I posted again. I'd like to say that it's because I've been very busy, but who am I kidding? Let's see... what have I been up to since my last post?

I had my actual birthday. Nothing exciting to report there. Unless you count losing all the European youth discounts as exciting? I had a pretty chilled out day just with classes, coffee with Denise, and a nice dinner with Hannah. Later in the week, Brazilian had me over for dinner. He lives in Le Quesnoy which is a (supposedly pretty) fortified town about 15 minutes from here. I didn't see much as it was already dark when I arrived, so I really must go back. How not to end an evening? Asking when we have to leave to go to the station exactly ten minutes before the train leaves and having to rush there and basically run to catch the train. Nice.

That weekend, we made burritos and basically ate far too much. At one point, we went to a chilled out bar and met some random Portuguese guy who invited us to a concert there the following week (I'll get to that adventure in a moment). I also went to Lille to hang out with Erika on her way back to St. Quentin from England.

English Night is still... well, English Night. One of my students showed back up. I didn't scare him off to much! He's a real sweetie.

This past week was an adventure. I handed in a sheet with all of my hours on it at work only to be told that it could not be possible that I was teaching the Masters class. I spent most of the week in the dark, and finally found out that I could not continue teaching the class. It was an administrative nightmare (I work at one school, while the Masters class is technically in another school, but not really) where basically everything that could go wrong went wrong. None of it was my fault fortunately, it was everyone else who let the ball drop. Oh, well. I'm quite sad about it though. As big as pains that they could be, I really liked them. Friday, I went in to say goodbye and unexpectedly clarified the real reason why I was no longer their teacher. 25 year-old guys should not have had such heartbroken expressions on their faces, but they did. They're the ones getting the really bad end of the deal. They will now be split amongst the other two classes who are at different levels of English. At least I get to see one of them every week as I'm giving him private lessons.

Okay, onto the concert Friday night. It was basically a bizarre sitcom version of the Twilight Zone that kept getting weirder and weirder. First of all, it was less of a concert and more of a "the various members of the band playing at random times whenever they felt like it" sort of thing. We met up with some people we already met before as well as some crazy new ones. We soon became the center of attention (which also earned us some serenades!). One of the girls who showed up had actually been married to an American for a few years! After the "concert", we joined a few of the people at another bar in town. I think this night takes the crown in most bizarre night ever in France. You really had to be there.

Saturday, after taking advantage of the gorgeous weather by taking a long walk with Denise, I had her, Tish, Brazilian, and his friend who was visiting over for fajitas as Hannah was in Paris. We had a good time and good conversation was had. Brazilian's friend gave us a demonstration on how to do the Thriller dance, and Denise and I introduced them to the sounds of Hanson and New Kids on the Block. Probably best if you don't ask. We haven't scared Brazilian off yet as he texted me yesterday. LOL. It's a shame he's out of town so much for work, so we really don't get to hang out as much as we should.

Yesterday, after once again profiting from the warm weather, I someone allowed one of the crazy cast of characters from Friday talk me into grabbing a drink. We had already met him before, because he's an English teacher and approached us when he heard us speaking English. Other characters showed up, and we all ended up having a good laugh and enjoying a really old bottle of wine.

Since I no longer have Friday classes, I'm already half way through my work week. Today, I had class with the second year engineering students. I really like them already. A lot of the time, I feel like I'm the one always talking, because they prefer to just stare at me rather than actually participate, but some of them are really growing on me. I even had a nice conversation with one of Jane's students today on his trip to the States over the holidays. His level of English is so high that I hope he gets moved into my class in the next few weeks.

Sorry for the long post.