A Weekend in Angers (among other things...)

Last weekend was one of the best weekends of my entire life.

Manon in Angers!

Firstly, it was incredible to actually meet my penpal! That's something that people only dream of doing...at least people with penpals. I kept thinking (and admittedly saying out loud) "This is every penpal's dream come true!"

Secondly, I got to see a bunch of new places in France that I wouldn't have otherwise! I saw Angers, the big city that Manon lives about 20 minutes away from, and Feneu which is the small town where she lives. On Sunday her mom us all to see the troglodytes which are houses literally built into the earth. It was a beautiful day and the Loire region was so pretty!

Vineyards on our drive to see the troglodytes.

Thirdly, Manon's family is soooooo nice! I had a ton of fun just hanging out with them. She has two younger brothers (14 and 9) who are learning English so every so often we would speak English with them (I spoke English with Manon too). For dinner we had cheese covered everything with wine (vive la France!) and for lunch on Sunday Manon's mom gave me a plate full of pastries to try. They were all DELICIOUS.

Also, they don't have a bunch of crazy rules like there are at my house here in Rennes. I've gotten quite used to following them and they don't bother me anymore, but it was nice to have a very free and non-restrictive-at-all living space like I usually do at home!

But anyway, as it turns out this is going to have to be a bit of a condensed speed-entry because I have a ton of things to say but a small amount of things to write it. Next topic: teaching practicum.

Some of the troglodytes! (look down into the little valley thing)

As you may have already read, last Thursday was my first time in front of the class. (If you haven't read that yet but are interested in sifting through other random crap to find it, click here to see the entry.) This Thursday was the same thing, me presenting myself, but with slightly more autonomy. I greeted the class, collected their homework, and lead them on my own...well, sort of. Madame Ollivier wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly and towards the end she started intervening a little too much (she admitted) but she just wanted to make sure the students understood and that we got to everything. Overall it was a really fun time!

At the castle in Angers! Small small portion of it

I spoke loud and clear enough, didn't confuse the students with long phrases of explanation, managed to keep their attention the whole time, and by the end I even started to move around the classroom a little instead of being static in the front.

For next week (and all of the weeks to come) I have to remember to move around more, to use gestures to explain words, to make smoother transitions (which was an issue because I was never really sure if the students were ready for me to move on to the next topic), and a few other things that I don't remember but will surely report at some later date. But since I can't remember that much, that means there wasn't too much other big stuff :)

Oh and for all of you people out there who think that I always look indifferent/angry, yet AGAIN I have had a French person say "tu es souriante" meaning (literally and awkwardly translated) "you're smiley" or figuratively and correctly translated "you smile a lot" so you really can't give me that crap anymore! If I'm happy, I smile a lot. The thing is it's just normal for Americans to smile all the time, even if it's fake. That's not the case here in France where the normal expression is usually rather indifferent. And since I don't like faking things, if I'm not happy I'm not going sit there and smile my face off like I am! What's the point? It just makes me cheeks hurt.

The cathedral in Angers!

After my hour of teaching (and yes, it's still exhausting but I'm proud of myself for having talked loud enough) I was sitting at the bus stop having an imaginary conversation with Madame Ollivier in my head (because that's what I do, especially in French, to make sure I say things correctly). I was having this "conversation" because during class someone asked me about my French abilities and I told them I can understand it but my speaking isn't that great to which Madame Ollivier responded "Oh don't say that, it's good!" and I just laughed and shrugged her off. So anyway, related to that event, in this imaginary conversation I said to her "Do you want to know something funny? I'm a C2!" and then, out loud at the bus stop, I started laughing. Luckily I was alone, but there's a different moral to the story other than that I have imaginary conversations with people:

I told Manon's mom that I love nougat and on Sunday morning
 when she went to the market she saw some
so she just bought it for me! So nice of her! and very yummy :)

The moral is that I'm in the wrong dang level, I swear! I had a test earlier that day and it was pretty hard. I'm not sure how I did on it yet...but I got back a test from another class and I actually did pretty well! However, the difference is that the difficult class is listening comprehension (with a professor that everyone in the program hates) and the test I did well on was written expression. I'm better at writing than speaking/listening, everyone knows that. But even so, my writing isn't that great. I need to practice before I have to take a 4 hour literature exam at the end of the semester (yes, that is going to be happening. no, I am not happy about it).

So overall it's been a pretty good week! Tomorrow I am going to Vitré and Fougères with my program and for lunch, since my friend Tra lives in Vitré, we're going to her house to eat Vietnamese food. And then Hope gets into Rennes at 9:30pm. I'm pretty excited!

Even though I have two difficult exams and lots of homework that I somehow have to get done while Hope is here...No worries, it will all get done eventually! Somehow...