Thanksgiving

In America, Thanksgiving was on Thursday (22^nd). This (for those that don’t know) is a holiday to celebrate when the Native American Indians helped the Pilgrims find and grow food in their ‘new’ land. It’s almost bigger than Christmas in the States! To celebrate this festival, the American assistants planned a Thanksgiving dinner for pretty much all the assistants in Chartres. This amounted to about 20 assistants (including friends of assistants) in one girl’s flat! Our dinner consisted of Turkey (obviously), cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, vegetable dishes, rice dishes, pasta dishes, fruit salad, pumpkin pie and apple pie. We were rather stuffed. As good as it was, and as much as I love the American assistants, it was not a patch on a good old English Christmas dinner (especially cooked by my father and mother :)).

I had a very good evening with very pleasant company and a louder than normal Nielle! As in I was actually talking :P. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures, but other people did so when they’re up on Facebook I shall ‘steal’ them ^^.

In school news, this week has been very hard :(. For some reason the kids have suddenly decided to become louder and not pay as much attention – sometimes even when their normal class teacher is in the room! I think it might be because they don’t see us as ‘real’ teachers so they think they can play up a bit. If it gets much worse then ‘teacher Nielle’ will be surfacing. They’re still sweet though most of the time, and it’s certainly not putting me off teaching :). I saw something by another assistant: ‘sometimes they’re adorable snugglebunnies, and sometimes they’re the spawn of Satan’. This sums it up quite nicely :P

We’ve got the CE2s up to the weather and the months now and we’re starting ‘He is/She is’ whilst confusing them nicely with the fact that we also say ‘He’s/She’s’. Yay English! The CM1s and CM2s are pretty much doing the same thing. This is a combination of the fact that one CM2 class is half CM1 anyway, and the other CM2 class are the worst behaved so we’re going a lot slower. Plus it’s best to keep those at the same level doing the same thing else me and Joanne get extremely confused! The CM1 are kind of doing ‘Do you like…?’ but the CM1 we have at the other school are doing clothes. But we keep them kind of separate most of the time as they are so much better behaved and work faster; socio-economic status certainly plays a big part…(i.e that school is in the city centre and is semi-selective I think and the other where I have most of my classes is in the suburbs which are slightly rougher).

Don’t think there’s anything else, except that I’m off to Strasbourg in 2 weeks, yay! Be prepared for lots of pictures :)

Nielle

xxx

Back in La Belle France

I've been back nearly a week already! It's gone so fast.

So yes, Toussaint. Didn't do very much exactly, but got in some quality sleep and internet time :) Plus lots of warmth, Paul-ness and general family goodness. So it was nice. Got to see Chloe too and go out for a meal and to the cinema, so that was nice :)

In fantastic news, now have internet, although it does mean having to sit in my (cold) kitchen to do so. But ah well, small price to pay, n'est-ce pas? And it means that I should be on the internet less often too...which despite what many may think, is actually a good thing :P

Ok, so, back to France, teaching is still wonderful, although tiring. Have already been out for dinner with everyone and we've had a 'cocktail party' which ended up us all sitting round a computer watching weird French dancing on You-tube whilst sipping like two drinks each. Fun though :)

Got bored yesterday lunchtime and since my parents are getting/have got me a camera for Christmas, I thought I'd take the opportunity of a beautifully sunny day to take some pictures of my new home town. So here they are :)
This is the view from the back of the Cathedral. It has very pretty gardens where in the summer, lots of people come to picnic :)This is the Eure river, one of the two after which my département is named. It's pretty, no?
The same again, different side of the river.This is a random door that I was sat in front o. To either side there are very steep steps that I had just climbed down and then up again, which explains my sitting down...I thought it was pretty and kind of odd, so I took a photo.This is the Cathedral of Chartres. It's pretty :)This is the corner of my bedroom. Yes, that is a brick wall. And yes, it is indeed the wall of the carpark behind too...
This is my kitchen...note lack of microwave/oven/anything useful for cooking...

So there we go, my first ever photos! Yay! So you can all see how crappy my appartment is but how pretty my town is :D

Love

Nielle xxx