Well, I am back in ze France. I had a long (two planes and two trains), but uneventful voyage back to Valenciennes (the Montreal airport sucks by the way - it actually makes CLE look like paradise). My friend Denise was kind enough to meet me at the station to give me a break from dealing with both my 51 pound bag and my ridiculously heavy carry-on on my own. After a quick shower, Denise kept me awake and occupied for the rest of the day by endless amounts of coffee, shopping and other errands, and talking with me while I unpacked my bags.
Later, we headed to a friend's for a Galette des rois party. I know I've talked about that tradition before, so I won't go into details yet again, but it was a nice way to both keep me awake and to see a lot of my friends again.
Saturday night was another story where I somehow thought it was a good idea to be out until 6am. Talk about a way to really not fend off jet lag - going to bed at a time that is appropriate in the States (it was midnight where I'm from) as opposed to a normal time in France. However, such a late night was never the plan. Most of the best nights aren't planned out.
It started out innocent enough. Denise, the friend whose place we had been at the night before, and I decided to make a pretty chilled (and American dinner) of hot dogs and Kraft Mac & Cheese. We cooked and ate while singing along to the soundtracks of our French musical addictions. We soon joined my flatmate and some of her friends in the living room since we were being anti-social (not to mention probably loud and annoying with all the singing) in the kitchen. They decided to head out to a bar, so we joined in. Picking up a few friends on the way, we were laughing and singing what we wanted to say to the tune of one of our favorite songs. Highly amused with ourselves, we stayed at the bar until closing before heading back to my friend's where we continued our amusement until basically 6am. Oy. That did not aid in putting me back on a normal sleeping schedule. Yesterday was spent being incredibly lazy instead of being productive.
Today was back to work after nearly a month of not having to step foot on campus. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult as my students were giving presentations, so I just had to show up, pay attention, and mark them. Okay, so it's a little more difficult than it sounds as I also have to ask them questions at the end. Since 9 times out of 10 they pick subjects that I don't understand at all, it makes the questioning a bit hard.
Tomorrow will be a nonstop day of almost 12 hours! Getting to my office, lessons all morning (TOEIC listening. Ugh.), quick lunch, conversation lesson with a group of people I've never met, tutoring with one of my many kids, and then finally I'll be done for the day! Hopefully, I get a good night's sleep which I never seem to do on Mondays.
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