busy busy busy busy busy

So now I have a bit of time to tell you about my first week. It was INSANE, but so very amazing.

I arrived in Angers on Monday afternoon. Mr Picot, who is from the International Relations office, and Mr Melin, who is the director (!!!!!!) of the CIDEF, picked me up from Angers St Laud about 15h45. I was quite surprised because I had only expected Mr Picot to be there. They took me to the Cité Bourgonnier, where I am living, but the acceuil was closed, so I had to hang out in the lobby for awhile until the woman returned. I signed some papers and moved in right away!

I had to go to Brigitte Le Bihan´s office around 17h30 to meet with her because she is my ¨Guardian Angel,¨ as Mr Atkinson put it, and coordinates classes and stuff with the lectrice d´anglais. She is REALLY, REALLY nice and I love working with her. We talked for a little bit about various things and she gave me a large bag with lots of necessities - a frying pan, silverware, a pot, a toaster!, and various other knick knacks of the sort. Then she drove me to the Cité to drop that stuff off and took me down to Carrefour City in Place de la Madeleine, which is the closest section of stores (boulangers, banks, etc.), to buy some groceries. After she dropped me off at the Cité, I pretty much just made dinner, unpacked a little, and crashed.

Tuesday, I had to start teaching already, but my first class wasn´t until 13h30. I had another class at 16h45. I went to the Catho early (about 9h30) to meet with Mr Atkinson, but I never was able to catch him in his office. I met with Brigitte again, where she told me more about my classes and took me around to introduce me to people within the IPLV. I ate lunch with Nora, one of the Spanish professors, and a bunch of other people from the Catho (many of whom are also professors in the IPLV, but some just work for other offices). I don´t remember what I ate for lunch though...

Anyway, during both my classes, I passed around the sign-up sheet for everybody to find their name and put their signature beside it so I knew they were in class. Then I told them only a little about myself because I wanted to make them ask me questions later (to force them to talk). After all, these are oral communication courses, so they have to get used to speaking a lot. I then asked each student to introduce her/himself and tell me a few things. Most of my students are between 17 and 19 years old. After everyone introduced themselves, I made them ask me questions to get to know me. At the end of each class, I asked them to tell me 5 or 6 topics they would like to discuss for the semester. Their answers were pretty expected - movies/TV, different American ways of life, etc.

Wednesday I don´t have any classes to teach, so I just kinda of went around the Catho running various errands, including talking to Sue, the AHA International site coordinator, whom I met the last time I was in Angers. Lilian and I went during the afternoon to walk a little in centre ville because I needed to buy a mobicarte from Orange so I would have a cellphone for people to contact me.

Thursday, I had to fill in for Mr Lewis, one of the English professors, because he was in the process of moving and couldn´t cancel things. His classes were all in the lab, so normally the students work on the computer, but since I didn´t do anything with that normally, I just made them talk the entire time. I decided the easiest way to get the students to talk would be to ask a general question and have them toss around Mootivational Cow to each other so everyone would have to answer it. IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM. I didn´t have nearly as much trouble getting all the students to talk to me. I taught his classes at 9h, 13h30, 14h30, and 15h45, and just asked them pretty much the same questions over and over. It didn´t get boring, however, because they were obviously all different students. I taught my own classes at 10h15 and 16h45, but didn´t use Mootivational Cow as much with them because I did the same routine I had done with my classes on Tuesday.

The classes (that are actually mine) that I taught this week don´t meet until the following week (so I will see each of my classes every other week). The classes that I will teach this coming week will meet again in 2 weeks. I hope that makes sense. So all together, I teach 8 of these same level classes (L1s, which are first years), but they alternate weeks. I teach 3 L2 courses (2nd years) on Monday afternoon (13h30, 14h30, and 15h45, I think), and I teach 1 L3 (3rd years) course on Tuesday afternoons (either 13h30 or 14h30 - I forget and I don´t have my planner directly in front of me). I don´t know if the L2 and L3 courses meet every week or every other week yet though. I also have an extraneous L1 course Monday mornings at 9h, but there are only 3 students who´ve signed up for the class, so I might end up trying to move it or have the students go into the same class offered at a different time.

I already have gotten my carte d´étudiant from the CIDEF. I have already spoken with Mr Melin about the placement tests and I don´t have to take the first one, and actually maybe not even the 2nd one because I won´t be taking the main language course, just electives. French-English translation fits quite neatly into my schedule (Monday evenings starting at 18h and Wednesday mornings from 8h-10h) and Melin is the professor!! :) The CIDEF secretariat wouldn´t give me a schedule for the courses though, because one of the ladies said I had to take the placement exam. I might end up taking another course, perhaps Histoire de France (because during the fall semester, it´s prehistory up until the Révolution, which I haven´t ever really studied) if it fits into my schedule. We shall see!

I feel like I´ve written a novel now, so I´m going to stop. I have SO MANY THINGS I could tell you though. Perhaps tomorrow I will tell you about lunch on Thursday, which was the day for Saint Michel and the little party-like thing we had, as well as going to the samedi marché (Saturday market) and walking around in centre ville.