I meant to post earlier than this, but I’ve been distracted by absolutely gorgeous weather. It’s been hovering around 60 with sunny blue skies for pretty much the past week, so when I haven’t been in the classroom, I’ve been outside making the most of it. Sadly Alex, my usual sunny day buddy, hasn’t been here to frolic in the sunshine with me since he’s on his high school’s trip to England. Poor him.
Mentionable school moments:
- In one class we’re learning “I like” which almost all of the kids pronounce as “I lick” which is unfortunate but often hilarious. Example: “I lick cats”.
- I taught about St. Patrick’s day in a bunch of classes and in one of the CE1/CE2 groups (the littlest ones) the lesson quickly evolved into “how to catch a leprechaun 101” which I should have put a stop to sooner than I actually did since I was pretty amused by the whole thing.
- My Skype teaching has been moved to Monday afternoons which I rather like seeing as the sooner I can get it over with the better.
- Example of the things only young minds can get away with: we were discussing the idea of the melting pot vs. tossed salad metaphor in one class and one girl absolutely insisted that all Africans and all Asians looked the same. The teacher and I both tried to convince her it wasn’t true, but she just would not let it go. I felt a little uncomfortable on behalf of the one Chinese girl in the class.
- As I was just leaving the school one day last week, I saw one of my students running towards me. I assumed he was eager to show me something he’d found or ask me how to say the name of some wrestler in English, but instead he just gave me this big hug and looked up at me and said (in French) “class this morning was so great!” I almost died. Then a new kid in school who had seen the whole thing came up to me right afterwards and asked if I was the kid’s mother.
Other happenings of note:
- I was warned by Alex ahead of time that Wednesday of last week was known as “Père Cent” and was a Lorrainian tradition. It marks the 100 day countdown to when the high school seniors take the Bac (their equivalent to the SATs essentially). So to celebrate, they all dress up in costumes and parade the streets dousing each other in mass amounts of flour with the occasional (and far less pleasant I’d imagine) egg or condiment thrown in. They all seemed to get really into it and the costumes were far more impressive than anything I’ve seen an American high schooler wear on Halloween. I’d say it’s definitely got March to the Rueb beat. I couldn’t help but think though how much flour was being wasted. The bakers of St. Dié must have been looking on and lamenting all the bread (figurative and literal) that could have been made.
- The Darou had a special St. Paddy’s Day event with a musical group confusingly named “Moussaka”. Despite the name, they did play some very Irish sounding jigs and it was a lot of fun. Though there was one song where they would abruptly stop playing every now and then and the crowd would have to yell “moussaka!”. Plus, every pint of Guinness came with a free shot of whiskey AND all of the waiters were wearing kilts (which, when I ignorantly pointed out were Scottish, I learned were apparently invented in Ireland. Or so the Irish claim. Who knew!?)
Alex gives St. Patrick two big thumbs up
- It was Purim last weekend and since there’s no Jewish bakery in town (or Jews for that matter), I decided to make hamentaschen myself. They weren’t as pretty as I was hoping, but pretty tasty. I also made noodle kugel which gentiles Alex and Estelle tried and agreed was extremely bizarre, but good (at least that’s what they said to my face). 
my not-so-pretty but yummy hamentaschen
- Lastly, I discovered that my favorite German discount grocery store is closing and I am currently reeling over this great loss.
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