Swiss Trip: Lausanne!

Right now I'm pretty tired, but I'll forget about that and blog!! lol

Today one of my English assistant friends and I went to Lausanne, Switzerland. I really wanted to travel a bit and was so glad that she came along! Our day started really early ... I took the 6:35am bus from La Motte-Servolex to the train station in Chambéry (Gare Chambéry Challes-les-Eaux). About 15 minutes later I was at the station, waiting patiently for the 7:09am train to Geneva. My friend arrived a while after I did and then we hopped on on our train, yay!! As can be imagined, we were both really tired so early in the morning ... resulting in the conductor poking my friend to wake her up haha when he came to check our tickets.

About an hour and a half later we were in Geneva. Instead of waiting 10 minutes for the Geneva-Lausanne train we booked, we hurried onto another train to Lausanne that was about to leave. Yes, we were excited about the trip! But before that, of course we had to take free newspapers offered in the station (Le Matin Bleu and 20 Minutes). 40 minutes later... Lausanne!!! and boy was in COLD!!! Yup, like -2°C. I remember looking out from the train and saying "Oh no, why is there snow!!". Fortunately, it was a sunny day!

First stop: McDonald's for some hot chocolate. I didn't bother to buy any because I forgot my swiss francs in my apartment and didn't feel like using my card/euros to buy hot chocolate lol. After that, we made our way up a steep hill !!! Surprisingly, at around 9:30am it was just sooooooooooooo quiet!!! I must have said that a million times today! "It's soooo quiet! Where are the people?" haha. Anyway, our morning adventure took us to a tourism place where we got maps (very handy!) and some brochures.

Next stop: Lush. As we walked past Lush, I thought it was a candy store!! To make a long story short lol, we went in and spent like an eternity in there! It was fun though! The "candies" were really soap, shampoo, massage oil, etc. The sales girl was very friendly (the Swiss are really nice!) and it kinda took me by surprised that she addressed us using the tu form. After getting our hands washed with some moisturizing soap, hearing about a block of shampoo that apparently lasts for 80 lavages, and basically just smelling around the whole shop lol, we eventually bought some stuff (couldn't resist!).

At around 11am (we spent a long time in Lush!), our tour of Lausanne really began. We walked up a lot of steps to visit the Cathédrale de Lausanne which was built in the 13th century. Then we decided to walk to a nearby "green area" that we saw on the map. While it looked closeby, we took quite a while climbing uphill!!! The "green area" was also covered in snow!!!
We walked:

• past the Petit Château (which looked more like a regular house!),
• through some snow to the Hermitage (which seemed to be closed),
• past the Tribunal Cantonal,
• up some snow covered steps/thin winding pedestrian walkway to the Signal de Sauvabelin (640 metres, lovely views which compensated for the energy involved to get there!),
• along the road until we eventually reached the Lac de Sauvabelin. Funny thing though, the little lake was frozen lol. Some of the animals looked so cold, on the ice, motionless... I had to wonder if they weren't real haha. Part of the lake wasn't frozen though, and some ducks were enjoying the water.

There's a little restaurant next to the Lac de Sauvabelin. Clearly after all that early morning exercise we were quite hungry and after checking out the menu, decided to get something to eat. Well we were hoping for a chocolate place, thanks to the Chocolatière signs, but we found no such thing, hmm. Maybe chocolatière has nothing to do with chocolaterie? Anyway, at the restaurant by the little frozen lake, we ate lightly. I had a cheese sandwich (Gruyère cheese, thickly sliced bread, some green veggie) and a glass of sparkling apple juice in a Nestea glass (reminder of being in Switzerland: Nestlé).

After lunch, the walk downhill was a breeze! This time we walked along with road/pavement, which turned out to be not as steep as our pedestrain path uphill. Back in the centre ville, we walked past the Château Saint-Maire (which actually kinda looked like a castle, unlike le petit château. According to my tourist brochure, the Saint Maire, not Marie, is the current seat of cantonal government.). Anyway, we just walked past and took some quick pics. We walked around a bit of Lausanne and actually saw some people after a while hahaha, ok that might have been an exaggeration. Sure, there were people in Lausanne, but it just wasn't as busy as I expected it to be. We got some crêpes as well (sucre, cannelle, & citron). I liked seeing the crêpes being made. The crêpe man was friendly/chatty, and thought it was crazy that I left the warmth in Trinidad to come to Switzerland!

Soon we made our way to the lake, the big, real, unfrozen lake lol, Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). There, Lausanne began to look like the bustling student town that it supposedly is. There were some guys on unicycles, some teenagers skateboarding/trying to do tricks, and some little children playing in a park. I had a strong urge to go down one of the slides!! Lol, those little kiddies looked like they were having so much fun and my inner child wanted to have fun too. So you know what, when I saw an adult going down the big slide with a child lol, I couldn't resist! My friend and I climbed up the thingy lol and yes, we conquered the slide lol. I went first. When I sat at the top of the slide, eagerrrr to let go, the little girl who had slid before me kept standing at the bottom of the slide! She was just looking at me lol, while I just wanted her to move because obviously I didn't want to kick her by accident. Lol, anyway, she eventually moved and I had sooooooo much fun taking that one slide! *grin*

Lausanne is the Olympic Capital. As a result, we just had to browse the olympics stuff. There were some nice statues and of course museums (e.g. by the Parc Olympique Lausanne, there's the Musée Olympique and the Musée de l'Elysée, which is a photography museum). Well, we didn't visit the museums, nor the Swatch Store. We had about an hour and a half before our scheduled train was supposed to leave. However, we decided to take an earlier train back to France! As a result of this last minute decision, we got a whole lot of exercise!! as we hurried to the train station to get the 4:17 train from Lausanne to Geneva. Guess what, we got it!!! We arrived a little less than 5 minutes before departure.

30 minutes later we were in Geneva. Again, we hurried to get the train to France. I got a much needed nap on the train.:-) The train was going to Lyon Part-Dieu, so we had to come off in Culoz, France (which seems like the middle of nowhere). However, the train was running 10 minutes late, so when we reached Culoz, we just ran out the train straight into the train for Chambéry which was opposite. 2 minutes later lol, our Chambéry train left, and 30 minutes later, it felt so good to be back in Chambéry!!!

My two weeks vacation had its ups and downs (beginning right after the drama at the collèges, I destressed in Lyon, then I still had uni for the first week and the flu was unbearable!!!! (I eventually just had to stay indoors for a few days straight), and I also had a visit from the Jamaican assistant I met at the stage in September). Lausanne today was great, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of my vacation (especially since teaching/uni resume on Monday, *sigh... ok, let me try to think happy thoughts!*). Tomorrow--> lunch with the English teacher who hosted me when I first arrived, and personal weekend trip to Lyon :-). I really love all these holidays!!!!

Sigh, same nonsense

Ok, today felt so much like déjà vu. Sigh, students and cell phones, meeting with principal? Sound familiar? Yeah, except that this time the incident took place in my other collège.

Well, I have been trying to fight a cold this entire week, but today it got the better of me. Fortunately, I had made some copies of Valentine's Day crosswords to do with my classes - thinking "that should be fun and keep the students occupied." The second hour of teaching didn't go too well though. I couldn't speak because of my sore throat and headache, so I let two students write the answers to the crosswords on the board, ask the other students if they weren't sure of the answer, and well if no one knew the answer I told them. However, one side of the class was particularly rowdy - listening to music on their cell phones and taking pictures. Since the students with the music were next to me (??!!...) I told them that I was hearing them and that they needed to stop. Oh well, that didn't work as they just lowered the volume. Some students even threw paper planes during the lesson. I just didn't have the energy to stress myself out this morning.

Soon the bell rang and the students left. I stayed in my room a bit because I was really feeling sick. After a while I got up and went to the staff room. There, the English teacher and another teacher told me that they heard that students did not behave in class this morning. (Two students told them what took place). The teachers and I went to the principal's office to tell him what took place and who were the students involved. Well, of the five students involved three of them are the usual trouble-makers, and apparently there was a meeting with their parents recently (like a week ago?). I'm not sure what action is going to be taken though. Well, the principal and teachers told me that I'm trop gentille (too nice) with the students. Ok, I got the point...I'll have to try to be firm once school reopens (in two weeks - yay for winter break!).

Well, because I was feeling ill (still not feeling 100%), I decided not to stay the day at the school. I have six hours of teaching on Fridays (from 8:00am to 5:30pm!), but today I only survived from 8-10am. Before leaving though, the English teacher and I wrote a report each of what took place (what I saw, and what the students told her).

Why is teaching getting so stressful?!

Don't be a pushover

Today I stopped being the "nice language assistant".
I only had one hour of teaching this afternoon. Since the teacher had already prepared an activity for me to do with the class, I (wrongly) assumed things would have run more or less smoothly.

My students arrived to class quite happy (after all, it's fun being with the assistant), with some latecomers about 15 minutes after the bell... The students were supposed to work in groups of three, or pairs, and fill out a worksheet. I explained the activity to them, wrote examples of what they were required to do (in French and English) on the board, and walked around the class trying to help them out. Realising that some students weren't cooperating, I told them that I would have to speak to the teacher. They didn't want this, obviously, so most of them got to work.

Some students on the other hand ... well let's say that the combination of their listening to music in class (???!!!) , taking photos with their cell phones and plain not paying attention (esp. when sitting in the front!) just crossed the limit. The bell eventually rang, and I picked up worksheets left behind by two students. One worksheet was completed and the other one only had one line written. (later to be used as evidence ... hmm, not a good idea to leave your work behind!).

Well, I told the teacher about the problems I encountered. She and I went to the principal. Soon after, the four students in question joined us in the principal's office. In a way, I feel bad for the students. However at the same time, I needed to do something about their behaviour - show them that I'm not a pushover - else things would only get worse in class. Well, the outcome is that I will no longer be having those particular students in my class. The attitude displayed by one of the girls really had me wondering if I risk getting beat up outside school. I was assured that this will not happen lol. It's hard being like an intermediary... I'm not a teacher but I'm like a teacher... I'm younger than the teachers but I'm not much older than the students (ok, not old enough to be their mother, but I could be a young aunt lol) ... I guess it's hard for them too since they aren't sure how to treat me.

This is not an experience I enjoyed blogging about, so I just wrote the gist of what took place. I've been told that I am probably too nice to the students. Hmm, I don't know if I would say that. I prefer to be nice than to be mean (seriously, I put myself in the students' shoes.)... but somehow I'll have to work on not being a pushover. I'm getting there.

Exam Culture Shock

Today I had two final exams à la fac. In fact, those two exams, Contrôle de Gestion and Espagnol Société et Culture felt more like four exams lol: French, Finance, Spanish and Argentine History. Overall they went alright, although I guess this will be verified when I get the results lol.

I also experienced some "exam culture shock".

• For instance, if a question is worth 5 marks and the entire exam is worth 20 marks (typical in France), how long should be the response? Especially if the question is simple...? *confused*
• When I did my undergraduate degree at UWI, it was normal for exams to be what I would call a race against time, in order to write about 10 pages (or more) in 2 hours! Today... well, none of that! lol.
• I looked around and saw students taking their cool time to answer questions, no one asked for extra paper, and to top it off, almost everyone finished the exam and left early (some even with an hour still to go)!!! By the time half an hour was left, most people had already gone. Bizarre! It (i.e. slower paced exam) worked out for me though --> extra time to think of French/Spanish words and sentence structure, to check over the paper, and double check calculations. With Spanish, I was the last to leave... I had five minutes remaining, but I was feeling kinda bad to keep the invigilator waiting lol. Hope it doesn't cost me! (I personally don't like to leave exams before the time is up... never know what I might have forgotten to include in my answer!)
• (Two sheets of yellow) Scrap paper to write a Spanish exam? Hmm, no doubt it's good practice, encouraging students to plan properly. I just never had the experience...usually the exam paper was used to jot down a few points before writing in the answer booklet.
• Another oddity... everyone got to keep their personal belongings (bags, cell phones, notebooks, lecture notes, etc.) next to them!! (e.g. on the empty seat à côté or under the chair). I even heard a couple cell phones ring today during exams! Uhh, what?? Madness!

Well, I have no more exams for a while, yay! Second semester starts in two weeks, and my inner nerd is quite excited for a change in courses lol! But in the meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy some less busy days spent only teaching. *nevertheless I can really do with a vacation ... :-)*

Studio life

Living in my new studio apartment has been improving ever since I moved in at the end of the year. For example, at the beginning the wireless Internet connection left much to be desired, but it has since sped up a bit! even though it is still usually too slow to stream videos.

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If you're in France and want to watch French TV online for free in real time, check out this site from Neuf to view up to 20 channels: Service Télévision sur Ordinateur. Oh, and if you're located anywhere with an Internet connection and just need to listen to/legally stream your favourite music, check out Deezer.

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Back to the topic lol. As a result, perhaps the most significant contributor to my bliss is my new TV, yay!!! I bought it at the Emmaüs in La Motte Servolex for 40€ along with an antenna for 5€. I have the following six channels: TF1, France 2, France 3, TV8 Mont-Blanc, Arte and M6. Oh yes, and did I mention that closed captioning/sous-titrage is helping my French! I'm learning new words every day lol :-) (At my last place, my colocataire/propriétaire had provided me with a TV so I could keep up with "Plus Belle la Vie" on France 3 lol).

Here's a brief overview of my studio:
It's located next to one of the schools I work at in La Motte-Servolex. There are a few of us in this building, including the principal and his family next door. (Oh, they have a lovely cat! I'm missing my doggie back home, so it's nice to have a pet closeby). Here's a pic of her when she snuck into my room!

It takes 45 minutes to walk from the apartment to the centre-ville of Chambéry, otherwise, it's just 12 minutes away by bus. The centre-ville of La Motte-Servolex is closeby, but there really isn't anything there to be honest lol. Fortunately, there is also a bus stop in front of the school, and thus less than 100m from my apartment - which is great when I'm in a rush! There are cycle paths too, so once the place starts to warm up I'd really love to do some riding!

The apartment itself is small but a decent size: bedroom, bathroom and another little room connecting the two. Other benefits of being here include: the rent! (obviously! At 5.75€ /night that's a fantastic deal! Well then again it is school housing, so it is subsidised); I can adjust my heating to whatever setting I desire (yay, I don't have to freeze lol); and giant windows/sliding door/false balcony (becase there is a short railing in front of the windows) providing great natural light and lovely mountain views including a view of La Croix du Nivolet. Drawbacks include: not having a real kitchen; the fridge is quite small (which means I have to go shopping at least once a week); there's no stove/oven (I have two hot plates. The first time I used the hot plates I thought I wasn't going to be cooking here again! I soon got over that lol.); and one (bathroom/kitchen) sink in the apartment. There is also no washing machine/dryer so sooner or later I'll have no choice but to visit the (expensive) laundromat... though I did hand-wash some clothes this weekend. Oh, buses also stop running around 8pm, so that's a problem for going out in the night. In spite of the disadvantages, I'm happy here!

It's just really nice renting my own place (=more privacy and independence). Gotta love being an adult lol.

Teaching takes patience but can be fun

The first two weeks of teaching for the new year were *tries to find a word* ok I guess. There were some challenging and fun moments.

Some students were just really hyper (guess they weren't back into school mode as yet). My patience was wearing thin. After starting to feel like a babysitter, I had to tell off students in two classes. In one class some students were throwing pencils, etc across the room to each other during the lesson (I highly doubt they do this with their regular teacher!), and in another class the majority just wasn't paying attention and was noisy. Usually I can deal with students' not paying attention, once they don't disturb the class and distract the ones who are making a genuine effort to learn.

Points to note:

• When correcting students it's best to speak in their language! So in this case, French instead of English.
• There may be a few cheeky students who may comment on any errors made (e.g. grammatical) so be prepared! E.g. In my frustration I said ce classe instead of cette classe. This happened when I was telling one of the classes that I don't have to keep working with them and I can change classes. Turns out that my timetable had changed anyway, so I no longer have them. It's kinda sad though, because I had some really nice students!
• Conneries is apparently a bad word lol. So while it will get the students' attention (get them to hush lol), the more politically correct word to use is bêtises. :-)

Kids say the darnest things! lol. For example, I had my 4èmes ask each other some ESL "Have you ever ...?" conversation questions that I found online. It was quite fun and got the students involved. E.g. Have you ever been on TV? fallen in love at first sight? picked your nose in public? eaten frog legs? (they said it's delicious...) etc. After the exercise, I asked them to create their own questions. One student came up with "Have you ever sucked a lollipop?" His question "appeared" innocent though because when I asked him to translate he said sucette. However, I heard one of the other boys in the class say something about Lil' Wayne's song "Lollipop". I couldn't stop laughing (ah yes, double meanings! Nothing like a little rap music to create an awkward class moment lol), and was like we will NOT be answering that question in class lol. One girl claimed she didn't know what it meant but soon said "ah oui une bit(t)e"!


Overall, I must say that I have been enjoying teaching. Singing with one class (to Maroon 5's "She will be loved"), answering "Have you ever...?" questions, working with the cinquièmes (Form 2 students - around 11/12 yrs old), etc. In general, I think I prefer working with younger children because they tend to be so enthusiastic! and I can be my happy, smiley self (which they respond well too). I hope there are more fun teaching experiences in store! :-)

Happy New Year 2009! - Holiday Recap

Bonne année, bonne santé! :-)
Before I get into my new year activities, I think I should briefly recap my two weeks break which officially ends tomorrow! Oh noooo lol.

Well, it seemed as though I was not to have any fun over this vacation! All my plans fell threw one after the other, and as a result I was all alone for Christmas in Chambéry. Clearly... this was no fun! but at least I had a decent Internet connection which enabled me to spend the day watching movies and talking to my mom online. Similarly, plans for New Years initially also sont tombés à l'eau. On Monday, however, I moved into a studio apartment next to one of my collèges. The next day (30th dec) I visited Lyon in search for a television! While I didn't get a TV, I did get a nice pair of boots lol.:-) and had my first taste of Subway (veggie sub) in France. Anyway, so when I returned to my apartment that night, I was pleasantly surprised to see a yellow post-it note on my door - it was from one of the principal's daughters (my neighbour), inviting me to go to Lyon with her on the 31st! Wooo hooo!!! Yes yes yes, I accepted! lol

So the next day (31st), the both of us took the train from Chambéry to Lyon (1h30). There we met one of her friends, who took us by some of his friends. Music, drinks, apéritifs, guys:-) (got to speak a lil Spanish!), etc. After staying there for a while, most of the group left and took the métro to Gare de Perrache. There were no controllers that night and there was wrongdoing lol!

Anyway, so once we were at Perrache, the group of us went to one of the guy's apartment (located next to a prison... weird!). I think I heard Britney Spears - "Womanizer" a million times that night! But latin dancing with my new friend from Lyon made up for that! :-)

Soon it was officially 2009!!! There is no public transport after midnight, however, we all left the apartment... to go where exactly? lol. Well, at 12:45am, our walk started. Some minutes later, we were walking past Place Bellecour where there were some police officers (la BAC - Brigade Anti-Criminailité de Lyon). So I just said by the way "C'est pas le moment de faire des conneries!". Well, five minutes later...all of a sudden, like something out of a movie! we see a black car reversing through the street in our direction! Car stops, police jump out and stop two of the guys in our group. (At this point in time, the rest of us were standing a distance away monitoring the situation! Are they going to get arrested? For what?). Well one of the guys had pushed a metal railing at the side of the road (too much to drink perhaps?), and that had apparently upset the police! Fortunately, after a little while the BAC let them go, and the walk continued.

During the walk there were lots of people around saying Bonne année, bonne santé! and there was also a random guy claiming to be Hitch for les coeurs brisés lol. The group eventually split up as some people went to a club on the river, and one of the guys who was almost arrested disappeared and reappeared periodically during the night (too much alcohol? lol). The rest of us continued our walk to my nieghbour's friend's apartment on the other side of Lyon (where we were when we first arrived in Lyon, close to the Gare Part-Dieu)! We eventually arrived there 1h45 mins after we began walking! Exercise for the new year!!!

At the (really nice) apartment, we all relaxed for the new year, with music, drinks, a homemade tuna and tomato cake (tasted good!), I made friends with my latin dancing partner lol, and soon enough everyone was asleep. Later that day, croissants/pain au chocolat/tea/coffee were available for breakfast, and we laughed at funny videos on http://www.nanarland.com/. That evening I returned to Chambéry, happy for a time well spent:-)

Yesterday I visited Annecy. At first I was on the wrong part of the train, which apparently separates to go to Geneva! Annecy was nice (as usual) and I got to do a little shopping (yay, FNAC! lol). At least I had some fun during the break:-) Tomorrow, it's back to uni and teaching...