First Day as an Assistant

Today, it is the first day of October, and therefore I had my first duties as an assistant: show up at my school's secretary and fill out paperwork.

I arrived on the dot at 8h30 this morning and met the lovely secretary at the school. She was very helpful, there were some parts during the paperwork that I didn't understand and asked for clarification, she helped immensely. She also said that I speak French very well (again, making me blush over here). After filling out two forms for my salary and social security, she asked for my mandatory photocopies, put them all in order for me and into a big folder for me to take to orientation in Marseille on Thursday of this week. After only 15 minutes gone by, I asked if that was all I had to do today, and she said yes!

I was expecting to be busy all morning with things that they would make me do or people to meet and such. But all I really did was fill out fairly simple paperwork for a quarter of an hour and was sent on my merry way.

The rest of today has been spent running errands, doing laundry and planning for the next few days. Tomorrow, Amy and I travel to Marseille, as we have mandatory orientation there all day on Thursday. We are going to get there early and do a bit of sight-seeing, as neither of us have actually visited Marseille before. The rectorat for assistants have put us up for night (merci!) as we live so far away from Marseille that we can't travel there the day of the orientation. Friday brings another orientation as well, this time in Avignon. So many things going on during this week, la semaine d'acceuil as they call it. It will be nice to have the weekend to take a breath before a week of observing classes. On y va.... translation: here we go.