Limoges se couche

7h France time

I’ve just discovered the most brilliant radio station ever! It’s called “Nostalgie,” and it plays popular songs from the U.S. and France from (it seems like) the fifties and sixties. Right now, it’s “Hello, Dolly” as sung by Louis Armstrong. Before, there was “Turn, Turn, Turn,” some Elvis, a jazzy, Frenchified version of the spiritual, “Go Down, Moses,” “A bicyclette,” and music by the Beatles. With French commercials in between. It’s really fun to listen to. I just heard an ad for the latest Barbara Streisand album featuring her singing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” and I’m totally interested. I’ve got my enormous window open, I just ate half a baguette, it’s a beautiful day, and an echo-y Frenchman is singing, “Paris s’éveille.” And I think the butter tastes better here.

I called in sick on Thursday, so my teaching job began yesterday. I really enjoyed it, and each time I left a class I was able to make a mental note: Have a plan before you start talking. Figure out how to keep the class under control. Put together visual aids. I went to three classes, each one forty-five minutes long. All three groups were quite big—25 kids or more—and they were all really excited about having a language assistant. In the first class, full of eight-year-olds, I had no idea what I was doing, but I eventually got to talking to the kids in French about what they last learned (because they’d all been taught by different teachers the year before) and about what they wanted to learn this year. Then I left them for a boisterous class of ten-year-old kids. I showed them all of the photos that I had of my family, friends, and St. Louis. First I showed them a map of the U.S., and they all started asking me where cities were: “Où est ‘ollywood?” “Où est New York?” “Où est Miami?” Some of them were pretty unintelligible. They later asked me if I knew Miley Cyrus, Michael Jackson, and “Vanssa ‘udges” (Vanessa Hudgens). They were totally thrilled with all of my pictures- I had one of downtown St. Louis in the evening that was awfully romanticized, and they freaked out. I think they’ll be fun, as long as I can figure out how to calm them down. Then in my last class, one of little baby five and six-year-olds who had never studied English, I got the chance to be more an assistant than a teacher. Their instituteur, this really sweet guy, spoke English well enough to do the teaching and allow me to be the living example. So we went around the room and tried to get the kids to say, “Hello, Therese. I’m _____.” It was mostly, “’Aylo, Thérèse. Aeen (Emma).” They were absolutely adorable. Next week I’ll have to present myself to four or five more classes of students, and on Thursday I’ll begin teaching these classes that I’ve already met.

Then last night I got to meet Paula’s Chinese friend, Mei, and some of her friends, who were French. We had a Chinese dinner party during which we discussed cultural differences. Then Paula, Mei, and I caught the end of a concert at “Le Zèbre;” the band, which classified itself as “jazz rock,” was like a jam band with a flautist as the soloist. This same guy also played trumpet and sax. And as an encore, the group played “Groove is in the Heart,” which no one else seemed to recognize. Then I met some more French people, a couple of whom were sweet and interested in talking to people who weren’t French.

Now this station is playing “The Winner Takes It All.” Amazing. The commentator called it, “Ze winnair take zit ohl.”

Today, Paula introduced me to Alexander, a boy from Romania who is staying in our building. He speaks almost no French, which astonishes me because he said he studied it for eight years. He almost seems to not want to learn it. Anyway, he told me about the way people drive in Bucharest, and I said, “Where?” to which he replied, “Bucharest. The capital of Romania. What have you heard about Romania?” I told him not very much at all, and then he asked me if I’d heard of Dracula. Hahaha. Anyway, the three of us went to a brasserie so that they could drink beer and I could drink a limonade, and then we got to see some traditional French dancing in the street. I was so excited, I practically ran over to the event. The dancers wore enormous wooden clogs, so that must be part of Limousin culture. They must have been performing throughout the city, because they did a few dances for us in their traditional dress and clogs and then paraded down the street to another location.

So I've had a pretty good day! Right now I’m trying to get together some ideas for what to do in my classes. First objective: figure out how to learn 200+ names.