Well it's been a few weeks so far and I've been well acquainted with the lycée and collège classes, with only one more English professor left to meet. Today, a Wednesday, the students only have half a school day (as it always is). So i'm using salle 9, the computer room, and planning my next lessons for the rest of the week!
My schedule is relatively bunched together- I asked for Monday or Friday off, but as I couldn't get it completely free I have an afternoon class (around 2 p.m.) on Mondays and an early (8:15) class on Friday, and then the rest of the weekend is mine! I haven't planned any trips yet outside of Aiguillon but first on the list of places to go is Bordeaux. It's the closest metropolis to Aiguillon and definitely worth going for a week-long vacation, from what I hear!
We had the meeting for the assistants in the Lot-et-Garonne region yesterday in Agen. It lasted from 9 to a little before 5 (long day to sit in a muggy classroom and listen to a Frenchman drone on about health insurance for hours! :-/ ) Anyway, it was necessary information that we probably would've missed otherwise, so at least now we're informed.
We met the other assistants in the area, and I recognized a few from the website i've been frequenting (assistantsinfrance.com) and the e-mails we'd been exchanging before arriving in France. Everyone seems just about as excited as I am to be in a foreign country and sharing their culture with French kids. It really is a neat thing, being an assistant, because you only have half the class (which is a little more intimately sized and you can work a little closer with each student individually on his or her progress and help them better). The younger students seem to have (as well as more energy) a lot of excitement about learning english and are certainly more prone to speaking up, as the older students seem a bit more restrictive and shy (their speaking level isn't necessarily higher just because they are older, something I had to take into account after seeing lots of "deer in headlight" looks after explaining where Novi was on my left hand.
I've also been taking some time getting to show Amy around (the primaire assistant who teaches at Marcel Pagnol) and introduce her to the hierarchy of the high school. I'm still trying to get used to the whole French System (System D) of going to 5 people just to get my laundry washed or use the copy machine, et cetera. It's a process that takes longer to get things done but so be it :insert French shrug here:.
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