So enough with voyaging around Europe, I'm back to the Besancon routine. Classes started up again on Thursday and the kids were pretty rowdy. After nearly 2 weeks of vacation, they had some trouble getting back in the routine. We worked on the names of the days of the week and it took a little longer than I expected. As with the other lessons I have taught so far, the lesson in general got much better with each successive session. I always feel badly for whichever class falls first in the lesson set, so far it's been a different one for one reason or another, but after I've taught the lesson a few more times I look back and wish I could re-teach it to that first class. At the suggestion of one of the teachers (I think her class was the third or fourth to whom I taught this lesson), I started having the kids use their
ardoises (miniature chalkboards/dry-erase boards). I used it to review the numbers -- I would say a number and they would have to write it down and then raise their board. They love racing to see who can get it first and it allows me to verify that they're really learning. Also, I usually quiz them by holding up a flashcard of whatever vocabulary word we're reviewing (in this case, it would be a numeral), so by having them write the numeral out, it was a different way of testing their retention.
After only a few weeks of teaching my respect for the teaching profession in general has increased exponentially. Because the information itself seems basic, it's easy to think that teaching would be just as simple. But it's not -- finding the most effective and compelling way to present a new concept is so much harder than I ever realized. And it requires a lot of flexibility -- sometimes a concept is much harder for the kids than I anticipated and I have to modify whatever I had planned to teach them. And then sometimes they get it right away and I have to come up with an activity on the spot because the first one goes so quickly. And sometimes the kids are just brats. In general they have been really good, but there are one or two malcontents in practically every class who occasionally make their voices heard despite my shushing. And one or two of the classes (I can think of one class of 3rd graders at Bourgogne and one class of 4th graders at Champagne) are less attentive and less cooperative than the rest. During those classes especially I wish I could tap into that resevoir of endless patience that my mother always seems to possess...
I didn't have any big plans for this weekend, but it ended up being quite busy. Most of the activity happened on Friday. I had my third riding lesson, which went even better than the first two. This time I rode a Connemara named
Saphir (Sapphire). Even though he was a little small for me (Connemaras are ponys, but fairly large and sturdy, and so they can sometimes be more like small horses), he was very responsive and a lot of fun to ride. There was one other girl in my lesson, Elisa, who told me afterwards that this lesson was her first time back in the saddle after a fairly serious car accident over a year ago. She rode Nouba, the horse I rode during my last lesson. We had to ride inside because it rained pretty hard on Thursday and was too wet to go outside. We didn't get to jump, but worked on a lot of bending and exercises on the flat. Since I'm planning to visit Strasbourg with Brooke next weekend, I arranged with Marie, the director, to make up the lesson I will miss the next morning at 9am.
Ultimate practice went well. The 1st team (which plays in Division III, I believe) had the first round of their indoor championship tournament while I was away in Vienna and they won the whole thing! The final rounds of the tournament won't take place until February (I still don't understand the system), but they will have good seeding because of their victories last weekend. For the scrimmage on Friday night we played the 1st team versus the 2nd team (which plays at the regional level, not the national level, and is the co-ed team), which was a bit frustrating. It's always demoralizing to go in knowing you're playing against people of a much higher skill level, but we managed to score some good points nonetheless. The reasoning behind having the first and second teams play each other is so that the second team has a chance to work together, without depending on the first team players, who won't be there during our competitions. Hopefully we'll only improve!
Then, after Ultimate, I hurried home to shower and change for Candice, Laurie, and Kati's
pendaison de la crémaillère (housewarming party). Candice and Laurie are the two assistants who found an apartment in the c-v and Kati, an Austrian ERASMUS student, is their roommate. ERASMUS is a really popular program in the EU which allows university students to study abroad for a year in another EU country. Most people I meet assume I am an ERASMUS student (for some reason most people don't seem to know it's only an EU thing). Because all of the EU countries use this same program, students have the security of knowing their credits will transfer when they return to their home university.
Anyway, they've been moved in since our second week here, but this party was an excuse to hang out and mingle (Kati's friends from the university -- she's in the
faculte des beaux-arts or school of art -- plus the english teaching assistants). Because I didn't get back from practice until 11pm, I didn't arrive until nearly midnight, but was pleased to find quite a bustling party! I met a bunch of new people, including Kati's friends and some friends of other assistants. Even though it was a late night, I'm really glad I went!
Saturday morning I was up bright and early to get there for my 9am lesson. The barn was packed! There were 11 other people in my lesson in the smallish indoor, and then another lesson of 6-7 little kids on Shetland ponies in an outdoor arena. The most people I'd ever seen at the
Ecuries at one time was probably 10, so the atmosphere was very different. I cannot say I enjoyed my lesson very much. I rode
Saphir again, and he was fine, but there were just too many people in our lesson. The ring could probably comfortably hold 8 horses and ponys, but 12 was way too many. And besides the numbers, the range of abilities was also too wide; there were one or two adults who did not seem to have control of their horses. And Beatrice (Marie's daughter, the main coach/instructor) didn't do anything to curb her son, who was also riding in the lesson. He appeared to be about 7 or 8 and was a total brat. He kept shouting to his mother about one thing or another, didn't pay attention to the other horses around him, made loud noises and waved his crop around while we were waiting our turns to jump, etc. I was shocked by his behavior. We did jump -- a gymnastic which eventually included 3 verticals and an oxer, and that scared me even more than the flatwork.
Saphir was fine, but watching some of the others, especially when we were supposed to do it with our hands behind our backs, made me really nervous.
Honestly, if Saturday's lesson had been my first experience at the
Ecuries, I don't know if I would have gone back. Talking with a few of the adults in my lesson after it was over, they were surprised Marie would schedule so many people at once. They were also thoroughly annoyed by the instructor's son. Their reactions reassured me a little bit, because at least they didn't see the experience as the norm. But I'm definitely going to stick to my Friday afternoon slot. It's sort of a shame too, because there was a convivial atmosphere with the group at 9am. The adults from the lesson, about four or so plus another three who had come to watch, invited me to join them for coffee and a snack in the barn's common room afterward. They were really friendly and it was nice to chat with them. It was definitely the dynamic that I had hoped to find by joining this barn.
Then Saturday afternoon I went ice-skating with Colin, Romain, and Romain's girlfriend. We went to the
patinoire (ice rink) Lafayette, the same one where I saw the hockey match. The ice rink participates in the
carte avantages jeunes (youth pass), so I got in for free! We spent nearly 2 hours there and had a lot of fun! It was fairly crowded, and of course there were the teenage boys skating way too fast and darting in front and behind the other skaters. But there was a separate, smaller rink reserved for the kids, so at least I didn't have to worry about accidentally running over some poor toddler on skates! None of the four of us fell, so we considered it a success! I love ice-skating and was really glad that we got to go.
This morning I went to church as usual, and when I got back I baked a loaf of banana bread! I noticed on Saturday that Steph and Charly's 4 bananas were turning black, and suggested I could bake them a
cake. So
faux amis, or "false friends" like
cake make French even more confusing than it already is. In French a
cake is a loaf cake, usually savory but sometimes sweet, with the size/texture/consistency of banana or zucchini bread (maybe a little drier, especially if it's savory). You wouldn't say "pain de bananas" because
pain is bread that you slice or use for a sandwich, like
baguette or a loaf of whole wheat bread. I just took it out of the oven and it looks pretty good! I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies this past Wednesday when my package finally arrived, and Steph and Charly loved them! I was quite pleased with how well they turned out, and hope the banana bread is just as good.
Here are some pictures I took last Wednesday when I took a long bike-ride along the Doubs. The fall colors were even more beautiful on Tuesday when I went for a really long run following the same route, but unfortunately we had a big storm on Tuesday evening and that knocked down a lot of the leaves. You get the idea though!
Oh, one more thing. Yesterday after the #6 bus dropped me off at Place Flore I stopped in
La Porte des Saveurs (the
boulangerie/patisserie with the very friendly owner) to get a little treat. She only had 5-6 choices (not very many by the average
patisserie's standards), and I asked which was her favorite. "
Le figue" was her response, so that's what I bought.
I'm starting to realize many traditional French pastries involve the same ingredients, just put together in different ways (as in an eclair and a Paris-Brest). This one is basically an eclair (pastry with creme de la patissier inside) but in a ball rather than a rounded rectangle, and covered in almond fondant. It was yummy, but a little dry for my taste. I don't think I would get it again, but now I now I can say I've tried one!
