Joyeux Noel!

I'm lying in bed here in Toulouse and it is technically Christmas day.

I'm not sure if it's the lack of snow, decorations, and Christmas music that I'm used to in the States or if it's just that I'm far from home, but it certainly does not feel like Christmas to me. Even though I've been teaching lessons about Christmas and other winter celebrations for the last 2 weeks, it's just not the same. I guess it's to be expected, but it's a new experience none the less.

Although for some reason when I woke up today, I walked into our bathroom, looked at the pile of toilet paper rolls that has accumulated over the past 3 months, and I was struck by Christmas inspiration. My roommate found me coloring them green, asked what I was doing, and quickly joined in. We put on Christmas music and went to work. I went to shower and when I came back, she had even made adorable angels made of champagne corks. Yes... we made a toilet paper roll Christmas tree.

Those are empty pizza and cereal boxes we wrapped with grocery ads... they're empty.

While we were being oh so festive, our doorbell rang and it was Christophe inviting us to join him and his family for Christmas dinner tonight. I guess he had seen our light on, so he knew we were home and he didn't want us to have to be alone for the holidays. It was very nice of him and dinner was delicious. He even gave Anna and I copies of the classic French comic, Asterix. 

This is the one that I got!

We were also invited to have some light snacks at our neighbors tomorrow afternoon with her family, which we more than willingly accepted! We had dinner there last week and the company, discussions, and food were all fantastic, so I'm looking forward to spending more time with them! One of my teachers also invited me to join her family tomorrow if I needed somewhere to go. It's just so nice to see how welcoming and understanding people here can be. The French have a reputation of being cold and distant, but I'm finding quite the opposite during my time here. That's what the holidays are all about, right?

So, tomorrow I'm going to relax and enjoy my day. I'm going to get to speak some French and meet new people. I'm going to skype with my family and watch them open presents (and wish I was there with them).  It's strange being away for Christmas, but I feel such a strong and powerful love and connection to my family and being away has, if anything, made it exponentially stronger. I don't know where I'm going to end up in my life, but I know they will always be there somehow. Awwww.

I'm leaving on Thursday to travel around Europe (Ireland, London, and Normandy) for a week or so, but I'll update as soon as I can when I get back!

Happy holidays everyone and a happy New Year as well!

Newtown.

I know that this blog is supposed to be about my adventures abroad, but I need to talk about this. It's all I'm thinking about and I'm having a lot of trouble trying to move past and go on with my journey here. There have been many of these terrible incidents in my lifetime, but this hits so close to home. Literally. I live about 20 minutes from Newtown. I'm lucky enough to not know anyone directly affected by this tragedy, but I can't express how much I feel for everyone. Everyone lost, all families, the members of the community, everyone. I spoke to my Mom on the phone today for a while and I was just so happy to be able to hear her voice. I'm here and having a great experience and an amazing time. I'm meeting incredible people. But all I want is to be able to go home and hug my family. I'm not going to get into a discussion of what we should do now because this just isn't the time or place.

I guess all I can do is accept that it's okay to feel this way. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to cry. I don't need to move on right away. In fact, we shouldn't just "move on" from things like this. All I can do is keep everyone in my thoughts and hope that we can come together as a community to help each other through this terrible time. It's so strange being abroad while this is occurring. Everyone here is saddened by the event, but it's different when it's right next door. I know I can't let this ruin what I'm doing here. But, I can't pretend everything is okay. I'm going into school tomorrow and I don't know what I'm going to say to my students. How can I just give a lesson about the holiday's around the world like everything is okay? I'm sure they'll ask me about it, but what can I say? They likely know just as much as I do.

I just can't stop feeling for the families of those poor children. It's a sick world sometimes with sick people. It will always come as a shock when something like this happens in such a "safe" place. But, what can you do? You can't refuse to leave your home because of fear. I don't know what the answer is, but this will remain in my thoughts for some time.

I'll update you all with my adventures another time. But for now, I love you all very much.

When I wear a skirt.

When I wear a skirt-
It means that I like wearing skirts and I wanted to wear a skirt, so I wore a skirt.

When I wear a skirt-
It does not mean that I want French men yelling at me in the streets.
It does not mean I'm asking for people to honk at me.
It does not mean that you have the right to stop your car and hit on me.

I do not wear skirts for your approval.
I should not have to just tolerate your harassment just because "it's the French way."

I will wear a skirt any damn time I feel like it.
I don't care if you like it or not.
Leave me the hell alone.

Funny story that I forgot to share!

Sorry in advance to anyone reading this that's already heard my funny story (so anyone that was at the same party as me Saturday night haha)

So I completely forgot that this happened until about 5 seconds ago. Let me set the scene.

Anna and I met up briefly with some of the girls in town Saturday afternoon, but we'd already been out all morning and decided to go back home. Alice came with us and we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some wine and ingredients to make pasta sauce.

We decided to partake in a little bit of day drinking, so instead of Alice and I both getting 2 bottles of wine, we decided to check out the store's selection of boxed wine. Instead, we ended up buying a 5L barrel of wine to share (with plenty to give away to others).

By the time that Alice and I had left to go to a party, we'd both had enough wine to make us rosy cheeked and giggly. While the two of us were waiting for the bus, we decided to pass the time counting down the arrival of the bus like 5 year olds... you know what I mean- 5!...4!...3!...2!....1!.... BUS!! Well when that didn't work, we decided to distract ourselves by singing basically the entire soundtrack to The Sound of Music. Finally, the bus came. Little did we know, there had been someone on the other side of the bus stop blocking himself from the wind.... and by the look he gave us, it seems he heard the large majority of our... performance.

So for the entire bus ride Alice and I basically died laughing at our stupidity.


There's my funny story, hope you enjoyed it!

Tick tock goes the... calendar?

It's hard to believe that I've only been in France for two and a half months. It feels like I've been here for ages, but at the same time, I can't begin to express how quickly each week and month passes. I guess it helps that my next two week vacation is never more than seven weeks away. Yay for the French school system! I feel like I'm kind of getting into a groove with my lesson planning. I know I could make things a lot easier on myself and just not care about making the lessons interesting or trying to reinforce the language skills they're learning, but let's be honest- once a language teacher, always a language teacher. It would be nice to just not care for a little bit though. Oh well.









I'm trying to come out of my shell a little bit and talk to more French people, but the problem is, I just feel so awkward. It's like, I'll be enjoying talking with someone, but when one of us has to end the conversation, I feel weird being like... so can I get your number? I just want to practice my French. Nothing weird. I know I'm probably making it more awkward than I need to be. It just seems like I'm using people for their language. Which brings me to my next point. There are certain French people who are extremely eager to give me their phone number, but I never text/call them because it's even more awkward to make it perfectly clear that I'm just want to talk to them in French and that I share none of the same wishes that they do.




This week alone, I was prompted to the front of the bus by the driver. I thought I was in trouble or my card didn't work or something. So, I went up there, but no. He just wanted to ask me out for a beer. It's not like I was offended, but I generally just ignore French men. In this stance though, I felt like I had to go talk to him because you can't just ignore the bus driver when he tells you to do something. I'm no Rosa Parks here. So, I had to stand at the front of the bus until my stop and awkwardly talk to him. Thank goodness I got a new phone, because I am a terrible liar and I was actually able to tell him that I didn't know my new number yet. Now, I'm just waiting for the awkward moment when he's the driver again.

The next night, I was waiting for the metro (mind you it was actually 5 AM) and I was proposed to by an interesting young... gentleman. Thankfully, he took my rejection rather well.




However, I am slowly getting more comfortable talking to the people I work with and I'm making friends with friends of friends (you know how that goes). So, hopefully after another few positive French encounters I'll be feeling confident enough to propose a language exchange. AKA- getting a coffee and talking with a friend... real challenging...  I know.  In reality, I am getting more comfortable speaking French more often. I know I'm still going to make mistakes, but my conversational French is definitely becoming more comfortable at least. I'd really like to be able to have some more in depth conversations without having to stop and calculate my thoughts every ten seconds though. And in order to do that, I need to push myself a little further than quick conversations in the teacher's lounge.

It's definitely going to be my New Year's Resolution to become a French speaking machine, but I hope that I can take some baby steps there before hand. Or giant leaps. Whichever.

Also something cool- I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but on Tuesday nights I'm teaching this English workshop from 16h30 - 18h at one of the schools I work at. The school is actually paying me a bit extra to do it, which is great. It's not a ton of money, but every little bit helps, right? The only problem is, what middle schooler wants to take another English class after in school all day? Well luckily, at least one person does. There's two people signed up, but I haven't seen them yet. No one showed up last week, which is when it was supposed to start. This past Tuesday, one of my students (who isn't even one of the registered students) came and he sat there and talked to me for an hour and a half all by himself, bless his heart. So, I was planning on doing really fun awesome games to help them practice speaking, but unfortunately, they don't really work with one student.

So my questions to you are:

• Does anyone have any suggestions for things to do with one or two students to get them speaking that won't bore them to death?? 
• How should I go about asking someone to talk to me once a week so I can practice my French?

I am currently missing home and my friends and family a lot, but I am so excited to see Jason in 3 weeks and my Mommy and Daddy in a month and a half! Anyone else who wants to visit- bienvenue!