My mass email.

Reason #1147 why French is a more gorgeouser language than English: les retrouvailles. It's "the refinding", and describes that special feeling when you see someone you've been missing. Only French could have a word just for that…

Some kind of interesting week. I really don't know where to start… Since I'm between classes, might as well start with the teaching, or? At the end of last week I decided to completely redo my schedule. With only 45 minutes of class on Monday afternoon and an hour and a half Friday morning, why not just put everything on Tuesday and Thursday and make a permanent 4-day weekend? If I'm only teaching 9.5 hours, let's do this in 2 days instead of 4. Brilliant. This meant getting teacher and my supervisor's approval, no problem. Not so much. At my Monday school, where the teacher with whom I did 2 classes "fired" me, the one teacher I had left tried to do the same thing. Problems: he doesn't speak English, at all. In addition, I knew Veronique (supervisor at the District office) wouldn't be so thrilled. Friday was more than happy to have me Thursday. Told Veronique about Monday school problems, for which she scolded me. When I showed her my new schedule, she remarked, again, that I only have 9.5 hours instead of 12, which I told her in October when I did her job by making my schedule the first time. So, here's where I stand: I teach 8:45 to 4:15 on Tuesday and Thursday (with a 2 hour break for lunch, of course) in all 5 schools. If she wants to 'find' me more classes, I invite her to, but she won't get around to it until April. Until then, 2 day weeks for me. Here's to making the system's inherent lethargy work for me!

In other, far more exciting news, it SNOWED! A lot! Around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday it changed from rain to snow, and didn't stop until about that time Wednesday morning. I was beside myself with glee! It went from big, healthy snowflakes to that great shiny crystal kind after it went below 0 again. It was honestly the first time I've used an umbrella for snowfall. The biggest hitch in all this: the French. They knew this was coming, and no one did anything. When cars starting sliding off the roads, no one did anything. Even now, that the snow has stopped for a day, I've seen one road that's actually been plowed and salted, and that's it. Streets, sidewalks, parking lots, steps, anywhere that people might need to cross, is just waiting to get packed down and turned into ice by use. The unofficial estimate that I keep hearing is 30 cm (about a foot), not bad for one day, let alone the first snow. Trees were another problem, taking out the power in one of my schools (we still had class, but without lights or photocopies). Must be like school in the Stone Age, when my parents were little (jabjab). It also froze the mail, which never causes problems. My favorite part of the disaster was the marquee in front of Town Hall, which always has useful information, informed me "Due to unusual treefall, all major in/outroads are closed until further notice." Only the French would have a word like treefall.

Short one this time. This weekend: world-famous wine festival in Nuits-Saint-Georges, big basketball game (we're #2 and playing #1), and planning for my February break. Thanks to all who reply by email/letter!

Love from Autun,

-Ryan

Better day today?
Teaching, however, went like crap. Only one class, one hour long. Got there 2 minutes late, and the kids were already acting like chimps. They bombed prepositions on the post-Christmas quiz, so I wanted to review that for the first 20 minutes before learning how to tell time. No no, they went from chimps to sheep within that first 20 minutes, and it was all downhill from there. I've tried yelling, singling out the biggest problem makers, being funny, the scary quiet look, everything. The teachers usually do a continuous "shh!" or "be quiet!", but it's about as effective as horses keeping flies off their back.
Dead air, um, dead air.
I resolved that if they never learn prepositions, so help me, I will teach them to sit quietly and listen for 45 minutes. If I had to do this for 35 hours instead of 9, so help me...
This weekend: laundry and internet (sad that I have to program access to internet?), hanging out with Romain (the world-travelling firefighter), and Grace Bretheren mission church on Sunday! Sweeeet.
Best news of the day: Ana Laura, the Spanish assistant from Mexico City, promised to make TACOS FOR DINNER!!!1!!ONE!

For the sake of haym.

Day like suck. Teaching went fine, but everything else fell through.

1. I yelled at Dr. Mason (yes, at THE Warren Mason, nicest old man ever) for not having a recommendation to me that he promised to write months ago. Turns out I never gave him all the info he'd asked for, so now I get 300 words of generic recommendation crap. And I look like a huge jerk.
2. Before leaving campus I asked Miami for 10 copies of my final transcript so I could have them on hand. I come to France, am filling out grad school apps, open one (so I could finally tell Mason the poli sci classes I'd taken) to find out that they send it May 3rd, 3 days before graduation, so it doesn't have my degrees, and my last semester courses are "IN PROGRESS". Now I get to sweat new, final ones getting to me in time. In addition, they're overly watermark-y, and almost impossible to read.
3. European schools ask for passport photos with your application, I assume to make it a more personal affair, and to more easily affirmative action me off the list. The only way to do that quickly and affordably is those instamat photo booth things. If they wanted GHOST WHITE KID WITH GRIMACE then they'll know exactly what they're getting. I want my 4 euros back.
4. I still don't know what to write in my 'personal statement' or which language to do it in.
5. This is all due in Geneva by 31 January.

The only other saving grace is that the Auchan down in St. Panthaelon (the ghetto suburb where I taught this afternoon) found more of the Riesling that I like. EUR 2.73/bottle for white wine goodness.

I'm glad I have a blog back so I can rant at it.

Shizzle.

I'm honestly elated to get to be in Europe this year. More than I get excited for most things. It's eerily upsetting that it was 2 years ago this week (or around) that I came to Europe for the first time (that crazy semester in Luxembourg).
This is the first I've blogged in long. You can see my longest streak to date ended before I left in September on Xanga (xanga.com/grinnchy), and that this one is, so far, just random pictures. I've been inspired by Stephen (http://www.hungaryfor.blogspot.com/)
and Meghan (strangefits.blogspot.com) to take the whole thing back up. I'm still trying to use Picasa to do it for its all-Google-integrated-ness, but there are already things in the non-html saavy interface that are making me twitch, so we'll see how long this lasts.
To put you up to the speed, I teach English in France (see older posts here), live in a project in a small 'city' in southern Burgundy, and hope to go to grad school in Francophone Europe this fall. Now that everything's clear, I can re-take my seemingly patternless posts of pictures and complaining about the French. Aaaaannnnnnnnddddd go.

The Fete des Lumieres in Lyon