I have a question...is the phrase ‘Mary Poppins’ have some form of double meaning amongst the youth of France? Bizarre, granted, but when asked during a standard initial question and answer session: ‘you like errrrr, zee Walt Disney et zee Mary Poppins non?’ I remained utterly clueless when my enthusiastic nod forced the entirety of my troisième (year ten) class into hysterical convulsions. Sadly, all google.fr could offer me was a variety of predictable film reviews and a forum called ‘Egg’ for pregnant women searching bilingual babysitters, neither of which struck me as particularly side-splitting...though admittedly the second one was a bit of a yoke (couldn’t resist).
It is interesting the hold students have over teachers. One cunning boy today managed to get my supervising member of staff to swear when he caught her off guard and asked for the origins of the word ‘putain’ (which literally means ‘whore’), and I recently spent half an hour in a state of paranoia after two giggling girls requested the English for ‘crotte’, which turned out to mean ‘bogey’....
As my self-respect steadily decreases, my vocabulary is widening. I no longer stutter or pretend not to have heard when a fellow bus passenger passes comment on the driver’s rudeness or how dogs shouldn’t be allowed on board. Instead, I have developed a new technique; a sympathetic ‘oui c’est vrai’ followed by a swift ipod song change et voila, I may aswell be French. However, I still fail to fully comprehend the bus system in Le Havre, where it is assumed everyone has a monthly pass meaning you are able to hop on and off without any form of ticket buying or checking taking place. Yes, there is the occasional sneakily plain-clothed inspector, but in almost two months (crikey!) I have so far only encountered one such man, meaning effectively I could have ridden the buses free of charge since October 1st (which, I hasten to add, I have not resorted to yet). My boyfriend Huw came to stay for three nights this weekend, and I am sure he only purchased a maximum of four bus tickets which ended up covering at least ten journeys- wouldn’t get that with Arriva or UniLink that’s for sure.
Busses aside, we had a brilliant time together. Saturday was spent with the other English assistants in the picturesque coastal village of Etretat, where we braved the steep mountainside stairs and walked along the cliff-tops, followed by an amazing meal in Le Havre centre where I devoured a starter of whelks and main of mussels....no such thing as a seafood overload clearly. Sunday was more relaxed (as it has to be in France as literally EVERYTHING is closed), with a trip to church and a stroll along the beach where we watched the sunset, which was beautiful, if a bit of a romantic cliché! The next day I had classes to teach, but we cooked an epic rump steak and potato wedges in the evening, and after another laid back morning on Tuesday he headed back to Angleterre.
Since then, it’s been all go. I’ve had my fluency-assessing visit from the research team at Southampton which went well aside from my less than sheepish admission that my number one ‘most contacted person whilst in France’ was in fact still my mum. Yesterday, us assistants discovered a quaint little charity bookshop-come-café which lends itself to various soirées. Now, those of you who know me well will realise just how much I relish being constantly busy, so it will come as no surprise that I offered to write some form of drama piece to put on there, possibly even a traditional English pantomime if I can find a sufficient cast. Tomorrow we have another ‘invigorating’ training day in Rouen, aka a day off school (I feel about seven writing that). Oh yes, and I went to karaoke again, where there were far too many slow and sloppy love ballads for my liking. ‘Titanic’, stairs and outstretched arms- you get the picture. Luckily, we jazzed up the dirge with our second performance of ‘Barbie Girl’. The French really do have such bizarre ideas of what comprises suitable music for karaoke. I’ll leave you with this:
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