An Apt-itude for Adventure

Confessions: this was almost my blog title. It has such a nice ring to it.

Anyway, this post is all about me receiving mon affectation, or my placement in France. After accepting my post, I had to begin the waiting game again. I was told that I would learn exactly what town I would be teaching in by the end of May, another month and a half away. More anxious eating and wine drinking ensued.

My April-May motto

I was really happy to get the Aix-Marseille region as it is the region I am most comfortable with in France - I guess you could call it my French home. I studied in Aix-en-Provence during the summer of 2011 and that experience inspired me to apply for this program. I knew it was HIGHLY unlikely that I would be placed to teach in Aix, but I can't help but admit I was secretly hoping that it would happen. A girl can dream right?

Cours Mirabeau, the main street in Aix.

La Rotonde in Aix. Yeah, you can see why I wanted to go back.

In the month before hearing, I researched the whole region and noticed that there many other towns that interested me as well. I felt this was good, broadening my horizons a bit so I wasn't let down (but I mean who would really be let down, I get to live in France either way!).

Sitting at work doing planning for classes near the end of May, I received the e-mail. I opened it and was half-surprised to see it was entirely in French. Until now, all communication has been in English (besides the application) but I knew that it had to change over at some point. That being said I didn't read through the whole thing at first, merely just skimmed and saw the e-mail was from Aix-en-Provence! Could it be?? I would be going back to my French home?

Clearly, I was wrong, As I kept reading, I finally found the part that read the name of the school I
would be at: Lycee Charles de Gaulle. Next line, VILLE: APT. What? Was this an abbreviation? I mean the rest of the form was in abbreviations too. The fact that it was in all caps didn't help either. Mostly, it was the fact that I had never heard of this town before and doubted it's existence, as I had been researching my region for the past month and never came across it. Sure enough, I googled it and it came up. It was official: I was going to be teaching in a village called Apt. 

It took me awhile to get used to the idea of living in a small village (11,000 people) like Apt, but I have warmed up to the idea of it. Originally, I was planning on living in nearby Avignon (about an hour’s bus ride away) and commuting to work on the days I would need to. After speaking to last year's assistant, she has convinced me to at least start by living in Apt and if I decide I don't like it, I can always find a place to stay in Avignon. Plus, the school I work with provides a studio on the grounds for a reduced price for rent: 108€ vs. 350€ (on the low end). And all utilities are provided! However, there is not much in the town and there is only probably one other assistant in the town with me.* I already have heard from my cooperating teacher and she seems to be very sweet as well. She says she tries to have assistants work Monday afternoons-Thursday afternoons, which means longs weekends for travel! Looks like I will be visiting Avignon and even Aix (which is only 2 hours away!!!!) on the weekends a lot! Oh and I'm about 2.5 hours from the coast, Mediterranean here I come!

Now, I am going to show you the beautiful town that I am going to be living in with copious amounts of pictures from Google images and Pinterest.

Map of nearby towns and the area I'm going to live in. (Apt is the dot in the circle) Notice that there isn't a lot by me.

Aerial view of Apt. It is an old roman town which you can tell by the architecture, love it!

One of the squares in town.

Yeah, I'll be walking through this every day. No big deal.

View of shopping alley during Christmas.

Apt is known for having one of the best Saturday markets in the region. You can get anything from fresh produce to antiques to soaps and bath products.

Really, I can't be more happy with where I've been placed. I know I sounded disappointed earlier in this post, and that's because.... well I was. I am writing this blog to give you my experience in real time, with emotions as intact as they can be - it's not always going to bright and cheery. However, now I have realized how blessed I am to have the opportunity to live in a small town: my command of the language will improve immensely, I will save a huge amount of money (which means more travel!), and I will get to experience regional activities that only occur in small towns, all with bigger towns like Avignon just a short bus ride away. I have so much to look forward to, I can't wait for my Apt adventure to begin!

*The reason I say probably is that I still have not found this other person after much searching on Facebook, e-mails, etc. I don't even have a name, but the assistant last year says there is typically one other English assistant and a German or Italian one as well. 

Let's start at the very beginning....

I have thought about starting this blog since January but just finally got around to it. Of course with everything going on (working as a long term substitute, instructing 2 color guards, performing with Interplay, etc), I had no time to sit down and start documenting what I hope will be the most rewarding year of my life. So to get things started, I will explain how I got here - the TAPIF application process, the acceptance and what I will be doing while I am in France. Hold your intense yawns of boredom until the end.

TAPIF application
So many people who may be reading this know how I have been offered an amazing opportunity to be an English teaching assistant in France for the next school year and the details of the program. If you already know about the program, feel free to scroll down to get to the good stuff. To be an English teaching assistant in France, there are a couple ways to get there. You can apply to get a Fulbright grant or even take classes and get certified to teach English in France - as for me, I applied through the Teaching Assistant Program in France, which will forever be known as TAPIF in this blog. Get comfortable with the acronym. It is basically a program offered by the French government which allows young people who have knowledge of French (translation: you don't have to be a linguistic master) to come and help teach English to French students, from elementary to high school level. So basically, if you know French, are 20-30 years old, would love to have a 12 hr work week teaching, and want to live in France/travel for year and get paid to do it - you should do this program! To learn more specifics, you can follow the link above (the site is all in English so I suggest you check it out!)

Anyway, my experience with applying. Well... as I stated earlier, I am incredibly busy person. The application became available online in October of 2012 and had to be completed and turned in by January 15, 2013. When I looked at the application at the beginning of November, I thought I would get through it in no time and subsequently filled out my personal information and saved the rest for later (as well as asked my wonderful professors/colleagues for their recommendations, I don't have enough thanks to them!) At the end of December, I realized I hadn't worked on it and spent a few days of my break finishing it up. I had finished it.... but didn't really feel ready to turn it in. So I waited once again. Three days before the deadline, I opened up my application once again and realized I had made one of the most obvious mistakes in this process: I had written entirely* in English. Clearly, my procrastination made me gloss over this fact. So, I spent a long night re-doing my application so every bit of information I gave was in French.** The next night, after rereading it a thousand times and adding last minute edits, I did something very unlike me: I clicked submit. Normally, I ALWAYS wait until the deadline day to submit any type of application but for some reason I just felt like it was the right time.

I was wrong. After submitting, it gave me the option of printing my application and I obliged. Looking at my paper application, I realized I had 2 major problems: 1. All of the edits I had done that night had not saved. Grammar, spelling, accents: gone. 2. My transcript was not showing up. At all. As in, I had NO documented proof that I graduated college nor studied abroad. I was beside myself, freaking out and running around my house trying to figure out what had happened. Well, 1. I forgot to save the edits. Good one, Becca. And 2. I had saved my transcript in PDF format when it was supposed to be a jpeg. I thought I had lost all hope in my dream and what I had saved all my money for. Through much searching, I found two e-mails and contacted them about my transcript issue. I was hoping they would let me resubmit my application, even though it says on bold print everywhere that this is not allowed. They got back to me right away, explaining that they would probably be able to still see the transcript but that they would e-mail me if they couldn't and I could send another copy. Hallelujah! I was so relieved... until I realized I still had to wait 3 months to know if I got in.

How I looked when I was freaking out. A lot of this.

And a bit of this.

And my relief first looked like this.

Then the anxious waiting began, complete with massive amounts of junk food.

My acceptance
So after three months of waiting, April finally came. I'm pretty sure from April 1 until April 3, I must have checked my e-mail and refreshed it around 500 times. However, while I was at work on April 3, I looked at my phone and got the e-mail I had been waiting for - I had been accepted into the program! I was officially moving to France and not even just that, in the region that was my first choice, the Aix-Marseille academie! (more information on this in a later post) I was all alone at work and couldn't help let out a scream and maybe started dancing around the office. Just maybe. 

I am honestly so entirely grateful for this experience and it hasn't even begun yet. Dealing with all of the preparations (posts to follow) right now just makes me more anxious for September. With this, I am so excited to share this experience as much as I can through this blog. I know I can be wordy, whiny, and truly exaggerative at times but I hope that France and Europe through my lens can bring some part of my experience to everyone that reads it. On y va France - I know you will be a very good place to start.***

*Ok, when I say entirely, I am exaggerating. Of course I wrote my personal statement in French, because of the explicit directions.

**Found out after the fact that this isn't entirely necessary, but it does look great to application reviewers.

***Interplay friends: see what I did there?