The result of a month's frustration

Okay.

Imagine an alien journalist from the not-planet Pluto who was assigned to write about his experience to the planet Earth. He's so stoked! He starts a blog. The first entry is something like, “Wow! It's so blue and green and there are billions of people to meet!” It wasn't too hard to write, it was interesting and easy for his fellow Pluto-ians to read, and he was happy to write it.

Now imagine his assignment for the second blog is to describe everything in detail – the countries, the people, the topography, and all the knowledge that exists on Earth. He isn't looking as forward to that entry, so he keeps putting it off, but each moment he does so he learns enough to write a hundred more pages...and ladies and gentleman, this is a somewhat exaggerated and entirely unnecessary description of how I feel right now trying to figure out where to start and where to end up in this blog post, because my life has grown by such large amounts that leaving out any details would feel blasphemous, yet trying to include them all would result in dozens of newly-created and slightly incomprehensible adjectives from yours truly in an effort to justly describe my life here.

If I ever write a book one day, I think I could rightly entitle it, “Run-On Sentence.”

I have been here two months and two weeks. Or has it been a day? Or ten years? Depending on the day, it can feel like either.

To my credit, “BLOG!!!!!!” has been at the top of the last 17 or so to-do list's I've made.

Notice how I'm not-so-subtley talking about everything and anything not-blog-worthy.

Okay. Let's just keep it simple for once and go with the direct approach:

A Typical Tuesday in Real Time

5:30am - Wake up. Very grudgingly, mind you.

5:31am - Small victory as feet meet slippers.

5:45am – Drink greasy coffee from ancient coffee machine, chew cereal, stare out balcony window feeling slightly grumpy.

6:20am – Realize I have 5 minutes to do 15 minutes worth of stuff because I over-enjoyed coffee.

6:26am – Leave apartment at brisk pace to make 6:33 bus.

6:27am – Slip on ice because of brisk pace.

6:33am – Barely make bus. Stare out window for 11 minutes.

6:44am – Wait at corner in ugly part of town to carpool with Nathalie, one of the English professors at my school.

6:51am – Commence 45 minute drive to school, which turns into 1 hour 15 due to fresh snow on roads.

8:06am – Arrive at school. Spend 24 minutes making copies and putting last touches on lesson. I have 6 classes today (compared to the two I normally I have on Mondays and zero on Wednesdays, as I never work Wednesdays).

8:30am to noon – First three classes. All sorts of success this morning. Marie stayed after first hour to ask in an adorably thick French accent if “You uhhh...stay for uhh... always? Beecuhz uhh... I like yoo!” with the sweetest embarrassed smile and emphasis in all the wrong places, making for a warm and fuzzy teacher feeling. Continue riding on this happy wave as Hugo stays after second hour for the second time to talk about studying in the US, asking questions and impressing me with his English. Third hour was pretty standard; they're chatty but they enjoy my quirkiness, which is rare as most classes don't understand enough English to understand I'm being quirky.

12:00-1:00pm – LUNCH! Also known as the time I sit in the cantine among real teachers feeling slightly inadequate and embarrassed of my French, which sounds much less French when my mouth is full of baguette and cheese. Today there were fancy desserts brought out from kitchen staff because apparently an important person was supposed to come, and I don't know if they did or not, but I do know I (and most of the teachers) ate 4 tarts/little cakes/almond thing/cream puff followed by a cup of awful coffee, which almost tastes less awful when you discuss its awfulness with others, who gulp it down with a grimace.

1:01pm – Regretting the tarts and coffee. Too much energy, too little stomach space.

1:01 to 2:00pm – No class; odds and ends, chat with Aurelie (another English teacher and my personal savior, as she's been sort of in charge of me before and during my time here and has helped me out enormously).

2:00 to 5:30pm – Last three classes. Much less successful. After the second one, a student told me they had already had this lesson with another teacher. It was the same with the last class, though nobody told me. Turns out the next class would've been the same too, but I had a few minutes to hastily put something else together. They're at such different levels that by the end of the third class I had the impression it was dead boring for several students because it was too easy, while a girl in the back (who copied two full pages of notes) lets me know she didn't understand a single thing, making the more advanced students roll their eyes, while I sadly clutch my piece of purple chalk and wish the board would erase itself.

5:31pm – Reflect on the insanity that is the life of a teacher, and I'm just an assistant and only two months deep into the experience.

5:32pm – Tell me 5:31pm-self to shut up and remember the first part of the day was good and that I'm silly if I expect there to ever be any form of consistency in this job.

5:33 to 5:54pm – Respond frantically to as many emails as possible while waiting for Nathalie to drive back.

6:00 to 6:47pm – A comfortable drive back in the dark – the roads are much better – discussing the highlights of our day, switching from French to English as fluidly as a ping-pong ball bounces back and forth across a table. These days I literally have no idea what language will come out of my mouth when I open it.

6:47pm – Dropped off at bus stop, wait for bus.

6:53pm – Flag down bus. Get on, sit down.

6:54pm – Daydream about bagels.

7:05pm – Get off bus. Walk home at not-brisk pace.

7:10pm - Climb 5 flights of stairs. Think about how this is why French people aren't fat.

7:25pm – Eat dinner of pasta and ham, couscous, grated carrots. Cheese, check. Semi-stale baguette, check. Chocolate for dessert, duh. Check check check.

8:00pm to midnight – Go downstairs. Hang out with Alberto. Watch “Into the Wild.” Makes me want to go into the wild. Reflect on impulsiveness.

Midnight – Look at the knitting thrown all about my bed, begging to be finished before Saturday. Decide against it. Sleep.

I love and miss you all,

Katie

PS: I'm going to Germany for 2 weeks this Saturday!