January has already come and gone and I barely wrote in my blog! I think I’ve just been settling in to life here and don’t really feel like I have very many exciting things to write about. Hopefully that will change soon since I have a vacation coming up. My dad is coming to visit me for two weeks, and he arrives one week from today! We will be spending a week in Brittany visiting the coast/everything that you need a car to see, and then we are heading to Berlin for four days! I’m really looking forward to having a break; the one elementary school that I work at on Monday’s has been very frustrating the last five weeks. I feel as though nothing is getting accomplished there and I don’t have the teaching experience/training to know how to fix it.
Now, I think the best way to play catch up for January is to list the main things I’ve done.
1. My boss observed me at the Monday school, and it didn’t go very well. The good news is that she recognized all the problems weren’t because of me, and gave me some tips to get things to go more smoothly.
2. I visited Paris again! I did another day trip in Paris like the one in November. It was a lot of fun, and I got some cool stuff from Deyrolle, an interesting store near Saint-Germain-de-Près. They are known for all of their taxidermy animals and their maps of French products. I also visited the Opera and the Post Office Museum, and enjoyed both!
3. One big thing in January in France is the Galette des Rois, or King Cake. We had a King Cake in our apartment and I won the fève, the porcelain statuette that is baked into the cake. This meant that I was “queen” and got to keep the crown that comes with the cake and the fève. Our boulangerie’s fèves are firemen, but I’ve also seen Scooby Doo, TinTin, and the Laughing Cow.
4. My voice will now be used in elementary English lessons in the Côtes d’Armor. Two fellow Primary Assistants and I went to Saint-Brieuc last Wednesday to record our voices reading stories and skits for the teachers to use in the future. This will help them a lot because unfortunately there will be no more Primary Assistants next year.
5. I received my first gift from a student. It was a piece of candy, but it was super cute when he gave it to me!
6. I’ve been a little bored lately so I’ve started knitting again… and finally finished a project! It’s a grey cowl/scarf and I really like it. I’ve also been reading a lot, applying for jobs, and doing Sudoku and word searches to keep myself busy.
7. I have plans for my first week of April break! I’ve been accepted into a volunteer program through a company called Vaughan Town where I will be helping Spanish business people with their English conversational skills. I just found out that I was accepted on Monday night, and have been doing lots of travel planning since then!
8. After being paid last Friday, I finally got up the courage to get a hair cut in France. I went yesterday, and I survived!
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