An English girl celebrating Thanksgiving in France

Happy Thanksgiving to all Americans! I obviously forgot about it and didn't even think until lunchtime when I walked into the staff room and was greeted by this beautiful thanksgiving feast! It was also very useful because I forgot my lunch today!
And this being France of course wine and champagne was on the menu. Felt a bit strange drinking before taking a class but some of the teachers were taking full advantage of it so I didn't feel guilty having one glass!

Most of the English teachers here in either the French, English or International section are American so they organised this feast! It was obviously a cold meal so none of the turkey etc... (which I only know about because of "friends" thanksgiving episodes - I may have been laughed at when I said this.) But I tried pumpkin pie (actually quite nice) and this amazing cake thing - looking to all Americans to tell me what it was, it was like a carrot cake with walnuts and things in it with icing? Sooo good.
Of course this is France so bread olives and chorizo was also available, I'm not sure I've ever been to a meal without these things being there.

Putting on lunches for all the staff seems to be a regular occurrence here, it's so nice. We've already had a Spanish meal and then the science department put one on as well but we ate just normal food. No Heston Blumenthal experimental food like I wanted. Shame. What would we provide as an English department? Fish and chips? Sausage and mash or a full roast dinner? I hope all of them (with lots of cheddar cheese thrown on top.)

The general moanings, groanings and annoyances of an English Language Assistant.

I'm currently sat at home trying to plan my next lessons, and I cannot for the life of me think of anything exciting to do. I think it's because I was at school not that long ago that I easily remember the boredom and exasperation of doing another lesson which seemed to be the same as the last.

Me and the class...

What I really want to do is to work with video clips of films/songs etc... because most films over here are just English or American ones which have been dubbed into French. A good source of language and culture, yes?! However I can't do this because I seem to work in a school off of the olden days. There are no projectors or computers in class. Most of my classrooms still have chalk boards, which is rubbish because my writing resembles many little squished spiders when using chalk so I then spend most of the class re-writing and spelling out words for the kids. Even more ridiculous today was that I was using a classroom which DIDN'T EVEN HAVE ENOUGH CHAIRS. And this class was made up of only 6 students. Utterly ridic.
So, as a result of a lack of technology or resources I've been getting them all to do presentations on some film posters which I have printed off (in black and white obviously, a colour printer would be much too modern!). And actually, it seems to have gone really well and you can easily adapt it for most age groups. The only problem now is how blooming bored I am with those posters. The sentence "This poster is advertising the film Titanic which is a film about a sink - sunking - sinking - sunked boat. I know this because there is a big boat on the poster" will now send me into a mental breakdown.
If anyone can think of some wonderful things for me to do, ideas on a postcard please. I'm wondering how early I can start with the Christmas lessons, I know where I am with Christmas. I'm looking forward to teaching the word "tinsel" 12 times a week.

November - the month of the visitors

This month has been a month of visitors.
Number one was my mum, who came at the end of October (woooah I haven't blogged in a long time, and yes I realise she wasn't here in November thus making the title of this post pointless but I don't care. Sssh.) She bought with her some awful weather but also some treats like magazines and sugar-free jelly. For people that you know me, you'll know that these two things are vital in my life. She visited during the first week of Toussaint, which is like half-term. After working for a grand total of three weeks I got to take a week and a half long holiday. Twas wonderful.  I took her to visit Nice, a city which I have mixed feelings about. Feelings that I may explore through the medium of blogs another time... But as well as Nice we wandered around Antibes, even though she has been here before so I felt I wasn't really imparting my new-found wisdom. But was lovely to see her. (If I hadn't of said that I will get a very annoyed text in about 2 minutes time...)
Mum's visit also taught me about something VERY important. The scandal of the bus to the airport. "Lignes d'Azur" obvs think that all tourists are stupid and make them believe the only bus to the airport is one that costs €8 each way (ALL journeys around here cost €1) so I decided to research and found another bus which uses the exact same stop for €1. I feel I've beaten the system. HURRAH!
This was a discovery necessary for the arrival of Emily Copley. (Visitor number two) Em was here for almost a week and so felt like I had a room mate for a while. A room mate who tidies up after me, it's wonderful! I took her to Cannes (I much prefer Cannes to Nice on the scale i'm apparently making) and we went just before the G20 summit which was held there so the police presence was ridiculous! I also managed to take one of my favorite ever photos, one which i've been wanting to take for a while if you look here. 

We've also found that if you play this song at the same time as looking at the photo it's a sure way to cheer anyone up. Especially me, I start crying every time. Emily's visit also included a Halloween party (dressed as a Red Indian Chief and a belly dancer of course) me falling over and me going off to work in the mornings leaving Emily in bed like a housewife.
Getting her back to the airport on the Saturday was the MOST STRESSFUL MORNING EVER. The weather had been so terrible here that there were awful floods and floods mean closed roads and lots of traffic. It also meant a lot of running in between terminals and we finally arrived at the right place 7 minutes before her gate closed, barely time for a goodbye! Horrible horrible. This gives you an idea of what it was like!
And finally we get to surprise guest number three! Samantha "Wendy" Wynn. An impromptu visit, which experimented with the french covoiturage (car-sharing) scheme. Sam was neither murdered nor kidnapped during the journey from Lyon to Antibes therefore it was found to be a successful and viable travel option. I took her to Cannes once again and got another amazing photograph. If you enjoyed Emily in Pirates of the Caribbean, please welcome Sam in Star Wars!

Music provided here. Enjoy :) Other things that we got up to included drinking cocktails in Monaco and taking part in an accidental club lock-in.
Overall I've had a very exciting and populated month here in Antibes, and am now slightly sad to think that I have no more visitors coming! However, now on the countdown to Christmas and i'll be seeing you in 4 1/2 weeks England!!! Don't worry, i'm perfectly happy here, i'm just excited to be going home for a fortnight!

p.s. Sorry if you don't find the photo/theme song mixes funny. I think they're hilarious. xxx