And I have certainly been keeping busy as of late. Starting last Monday, I picked up another "student." Ema is three and a half and this is her first venture into English. Her parents speak some (not nearly as well as Alexis' parents) and they are all about this Baby-langues thing. They have read all the books and been to all the meetings and they are really exited about Ema learning to speak English from a real American. I'm not really a baby-sitter in their eyes; they're even in the house most times that I work with Ema. They are in this so that their kid learns English from a native speaker, and I am happy to be of service.
It's nice that I have Ema two days a week, instead of just one like Alexis. It's also easier to make progress with her because she wasn't traumatized by English like Alexis was with his last sitter. I know it's the Baby-langues method to speak only English and have the children repeat after you all the time but when you're working with a kid under the age of five who is just getting comfortable with their command of French, it's hard to just stroll into their lives and flip the script on them. It's frustrating for me sometimes to operate in another language and I'm an adult who willingly volunteered for this! Overall, I think things are going well with both kids and I am enjoying myself for the time being. It helps that both sets of parents are so cool. They are really nice to me and make the effort to explain to their children what a great opportunity it is to have a native English speaker come and hang out with them every week. Plus, I'm getting paid to color and sing songs and hang out with little kids for a couple hours a week. Can't beat that!
I am also "working" as an English tutor for the director of my campus, Philippe. Mireille put me in touch with him when he asked if she knew anyone who could help him get back into his study of English. In exchange for my tutoring services, he's going to sign off on an extension of my visa until October. That buys me quite a bit of time to get my next move figured out. I don't know if that means I'll be taking more classes or what but it I'm not even worried about it. I don't have to leave the country in May! Yay! Right now, we're doing one hour-and-a-half session a week but I think we're going to try to shoot for three hours a week. He has some pretty ambitious goals for himself so we're definitely gonna need more time. Fine by me: I'm trying to get a job as an English teacher in one of the schools around here so I need the experience and he'll be a great reference.
This morning, I got to miss class to go to the immigration office (OFII). A bunch of the Chinese kids from school were there, too, but they all had afternoon class that they had to go to afterward. Suckers! I don't know why I was concerned about this visit; I had heard nothing but nice things about it from students who had already been through the process. Official government procedures always made me anxious, though. Being deported would be the worst! Fortunately, it was no big deal at all. As per the usual, everyone was really friendly, they all spoke English when I needed it, and it was quite easy. I would have worn a different outfit had I known I was going to have to strip from the waist up for my chest x-ray but other than that, it was pretty seamless. Get an x-ray, answer some general health questions with the nurse, have your x-ray examined by the doctor, more health questions, and then boom. They put a little sticker in your passport and you're good to go. Can't kick me out now! I'm official!
The only thing I am not enjoying right now is this weather. It hadn't been too bad since I got back but today is just ridiculous. It started raining in the middle of the night and it hasn't stopped since. I suppose we're down to a light mist now but this morning, on my way to OFII, it was pouring AND windy. My umbrella even flipped inside out and evoked pity and concern from all the French ladies in the street at the time. "Oh là là, la pauvre." Yeah, thanks. Lot of help your comments are doing with my jacked up umbrella in the middle of a downpour. Oh yeah, and the high today was a whopping 39 degrees. Misery!!!! Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to springtime.
I'm till trying to find a better apartment and still looking for a more serious job. I have leads on both of these things but progress is slow and time is moving fast. Ugh! But I am confident I will work it out and that's pretty exciting in and of itself. I am also still planning to try out for that rugby team on Friday (last Friday, I spent the whole day in the house catching up on my sleep!) so hopefully that will get me closer to my goal of having more French friends. It's all coming together...
Don't worry about me. I got this living in France thing under control.
No comments:
Post a Comment