"Days off are like gold"

Molly and I during a day off last session

"Days off are like gold."

-Molly H. (aka Spit)


And today is one of mine. I've been working at camp now for just about 3 weeks near a little town called Venansault in NW France. And even though I've had 2 days off and one free day between sessions already, this is the first time I've gotten around to updating my blog. In the course of 3 weeks, answering to Shades, my camp name, has become as natural as responding to Kristen.

Hopefully I will have a chance retroblog a bit later today, but in case my nap runs longer than I anticipate or I just don't feel like it, here's a quick post to confirm that I'm still alive and still in France.

My days are full and very long, especially compared to my life in Spain this past year, but now that we are in the second session, preparing activities and ESL lessons and evening programs doesn't take as much planning as when we did it all for the first time. Sessions are 13 days long, and I'll be working for 4 sessions total. Even though it's draining sometimes, having so many responsibilities every day and working non-stop is in some ways a welcome change. I wouldn't want to work here for more than 2 months, but there's something exciting and challenging and even fun about such a fast-paced, non-stop, always "on" type of environment.


A few pictures of who I'm working and what we do in the few moments when we aren't with campers: walking into town to go to the grocery store (first picture), hanging out our room (second picture), and cutting people's hair (third picture).

And even though I don't have much free time to write e-mails, read books, call home, blog, or even think, I'm getting pretty good at a fake French accent, developing my ideas of education and teaching style, getting used to being on stage again, and thinking a little bit about effective (and ineffective) leadership/organization/communication as I see ways that definitely do work and others that do not. And, since the camp is an English language immersion camp, I'm continuing to dabble in ESL and (hopefully) building a bit on what I did this past year in Spain working as an Auxiliar de conversacion (language and cultural assistant) in a bilingual program in Andalucia. Plus, I really like the people that I'm working with. I'm working with Molly (whose camp name is Spit), who I met in Estepa this past year while we were both auxiliares. It's so nice to have here here. We're roommates, and our room is by far of all the rooms in the staff building.

In any case, those are the ways I justify my decision to work here this summer in the moments (sometimes several in a day) when I ask myself how I ever ended up here, running around like a crazy person, exhausted after 4 straight days of less than 6 hours of sleep a night and extremely full days, covered in green face paint (which actually ended up being a different type of paint that is MUCH more difficult to get off), or wearing a blue onesie and acting like an ox in front of 60 people, or inventing a cheer about shoes, or trying to make a lesson about the future tense "engaging", or pretending to be a marshmallow tree, or trying to explain the rules of baseball to a group of kids who get confused between "How are you?" and "How old are you?"

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One thing I remember wanting to think about and play with during camp this summer is controlled chaos. I like it. I want to develop my ability to create and manage it. Both by myself and with a team. And I want to be able to see the balance between chaos and control in situations.

And since a summer camp is in many ways the epitome of controlled chaos, it's not a bad place to try it out.

Now back to enjoying my day off .....

A photo of one of the buildings at Les Hermitans, the site where I am working

J'aime faire du vélo -- I like to ride bikes

Bonjour!

This post is coming to you from my friend Aline's house in a small town in Brittany (France). I arrived on the morning 17th after taking 3 different buses (total of just over 25 hours, broken up by a night in Madrid with the lovely Becca Niles.)

(For those thinking about the amount of hours that could have been saved flying: there were various reasons for choosing endless hours in a bus over a plane. And it really wasn't as painful to be on a bus for 17 hours as you might expect. :) Maybe I'll blog about it sometime. Now is not that time.)

Random house along a river in Rennes

After the rush of packing up my apartment in Estepa, traveling with my brother, saying good-byes, and tying up loose ends during my last week or two in Andalucia, my stay with Aline and her family has been nice and relaxing. Emilie, my Belgian roommate from this past year in Estepa, was visiting also and just left yesterday. I will be here until the 29th when I take a train down to La Roche Sur Yon to begin my summer camp job.

Brittany is a Celtic region in NW France and the birthplace of crepes. Generally sweet ones are referred to as crepes while salty/savory varieties are called gallettes. * After spending a day in Rennes, a large city about an hour from Aline's house, we went to Aline's parents' house. That evening we went out to this creperie (girl in the picture is Aline) with a few of Aline's friends in a town nearby. I thought of taking a picture of my food, but it didn't look nearly as impressive as it tasted, and in town of probably under 300 residents, I felt weird about taking it. I had one gallete with cheese, smoked ham, mushrooms, and egg and a crepe with chocolate, banana, and whipped cream with cidre to drink. Delicious.

Since then, my days have been filled with lots of biking, baguette sandwich picnics, lazy afternoons reading books, wandering along the coast, and listening to This American Life, Joni Mitchell, and Learn French by Podcast between nodding off on the beach. Also lots of time enjoying meals with Aline and her family at home (while mumbling out all the broken French / Frespanol / Spanish with an attempted French r / English with an attempted French r that I can muster up after eight 10-minute sessions of Learn French by Podcast and the 2 or 3 informal lessons I've had with Aline and Audrey, my other roommate from this past year, also French, over the course of this year. They're patient with me, and we all laugh after a successful - or failed - use of wild hand gestures, animal sounds, etc. to tell a story. Aline helps translating too from Spanish to French, but it's sometimes fun to bumble around in a language that you don't actually speak, right? Maybe? Sometimes I like to think that making a fool out of yourself builds character. In any case, it definitely has built up my French vocabulary a bit.)

À la prochaine! Until next time!

One of many beautiful views from the Quiberon Peninsula , where Aline, Emilie, and I spent the afternoon biking this past Saturday. This part of the peninsula is a protected coast. Several kilometers down the road, the protected area ends, the beaches are sandier, and there are homes, a few spas, one or two resorts, and lots of restaurants, cafes, clothing stores, and candy shops.

* http://www.alimentation-france.com/france/specialites/les-crepes-et-galettes-bretonnes.html

These are my friends

And this is possibly the best idea for a costume party theme that I've ever experienced. ( A dress like a scientist party my sophomore at college is the only one that has come close.) I spent this past weekend in Tarifa (a beach town in Southern Spain with crazy amounts of wind) with my a big group of my friends from Estepa celebrating Suzy's 21st birthday and starting a week full of good byes. The theme: anything beginning with the letter S. S for Suzy. (She's the star in the front row).

When in Rome ...

Post to come about my trip to Rome with my brother. Until then, here's a picture of us with the Colloseum.

In Italy with Dan

1:34 am

Even though neither of them read this blog, thanks to Alex and Stuart for ringing my doorbell 3 times at 1 am.

Though usually I wouldn't appreciate it, today it was perfect. I'd been in bed thinking about how tonight is my last night sleeping in my apartment here in Estepa for close to an hour trying to fall asleep. And after trying to ignore the bell the first two times, I'm glad I decided to answer. Just dropping by to say good bye. I'm leaving for Rome tomorrow, and they'll be gone by the time I come back, so today's the last day we'll see each other for quite a long time. Apparently if I hadn't answered, they were planning to show up at the bus station in the morning for good bye hugs.

Here's to good pals.

A day of gastronomy and spelling

Yesterday I made zucchini bread (as usual.) I'm a little bored with always making the same thing, but since the first time I made it, my roommates haven't stopped bringing it up. They like it so much that I know at this point that if I make any other thing to share with them, the response will almost definitely be "This is good. But the zucchini bread is better!"

So since today there was a Concurso de Gastronomia (Cooking Contest) up at the adult English school in town, I figured zucchini bread was both quite American and a safe choice to bring. It ended up getting 2nd place in the "English/American dish" category. (There was a different category for the best French dish) Not bad for my first try, I think. :-)

Here's a picture of a few of the dishes. The woman in the picture is my friend Angela. She comes to the English conversation table on Thursdays and works at a mantecado factory in Estepa. Her carrot cake won 1st place for the "English/American dish" and rightly so. Delicious.


I'm very full and happy.


Also today at school we had the semifinals for the first annual CEIP Lope de Vega (name of the elementary school where I'm teaching) English Spelling Bee. It's fun to see all of the students nervous and excited and running up and looking at the lists of who won the previous rounds for the 5th, 10th, or 50th time this week during recess. Since we started the contest, I've been thinking about spelling, phonetics in Spanish vs English, and pronunciation of words way too much. But I don't mind.


Now it's time for Sevillana* class, maybe a Cruzcampo afterward, and the beginning of a 4-day weekend. Que bonita es esta vida....**





*What is Sevillana? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevillanas

**Reference to a song I just got stuck in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azAjn8jHt5Y

Especially after this year (living in Spain with a French girl and a Belgian girl), I find relations/stereotypes among Europeans and European countries interesting. So I find this map blog-worthy. Enjoy.

Source: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16003661