La Rentrée, Aix Edition

I spent most of this week telling 13 year olds how beautiful Washington is and telling them what “y’all” means, so I am SO excited to finally have Internet and finally be able to show y’all how beautiful Aix is. (The street next to Happy Days is where my apartment is…and yes I do accept gifts ;))

Teaching was never what I thought I would be doing after graduation. I used to get so mad that when I would tell people my majors they would look at me and say, “Oh, so you’re going to teach, right?” Why is that all a double humanities major can do? (It isn’t.) But after my first week of teaching, I enjoy so much more than what I was doing in Washington, and love helping the students try to figure out how to say what they want to in English. (The premise of my application essay was “language is empowerment”…which I am reminded of more and more every time I go to la poste et la banque.)

I told my kids this week they could ask me anything–about me, about Washington, about America. My favorite question was undoubtedly, “Do you have the boy love?” which was even more funny in a classroom of 30 13-year olds than it is written. I really lucked out with my schools–so far all of the teachers have been so willing to help and show me around and I have students who are really interested in learning English–which undoubtedly makes my job a lot easier!

But…I only work 12 hours a week, so the rest of the time has been spent being sick, organizing my apartment, and of course, drinking cafe cremes because HELLO I still haven’t kicked my caffeine addiction (and the espresso machines in my schools won’t help that at all).

I would also like to faire un pause and say how grateful I am for all the expats and other assistants there are here in Aix–without them, moving in and exploring and adjusting to a new job, country, language and culture would be so much more difficult (and without their boyfriends I wouldn’t have wifi!).

Friday began our two-week Touissant vacances, so I am looking forward to being able to explore Aix and the surrounding area without having to worry about not having a bank account/wifi/apartment because now I have all of those things! Just have to get my visa validated and I am en route to becoming a real française…and very helpful when you are sick for a week and a half like me and need the health insurance :/.

PS- I am sooooo excited because I just bought plane tickets to Sevilla for our vacances d’hiver! My best/forever friend Katie studied there when I was in Paris and I never had the chance to go see her, so I am thrilled to have the chance to go now. If any of you have ever been there, please send recommendations my way!!