Les nuances

With the sun shining on my face this beautiful Friday morning in Apt, I can honestly say that I am feeling so happy to be here today. When I return home, I think the first thing that I will miss about this place is the abundant sunshine that permeates every day*, making even the chilled breezy weather seem to be a Michigan spring. This morning, I opened the double windows in the living room and laid for an hour underneath the rays, soaking up every bit of sun. I have a little bit of color now… crazy to think that this is a typical January morning here.

Mmm... soleil

The past week has been uneventful to say in the least. Monday, while I was at my Business English classes, they mentioned the documents I have been translating for them. I honestly haven’t had much time to work on them – resulting that it would become a project for this weekend, which seemed do-able as there are only 3 documents to do. When I explained this, my boss gave me a funny look and said “send them over to me when you are done, there is much more we want to send you!” I am grateful for the opportunity not only to teach for this company but to also do some translating for them, but I hope that I have not gotten myself in over my head. Either way I’m taking it all in stride, as the days are rallongé** now. As my boss tried to explain to me the meaning of this new word and how it is different from its near partner allongé, we had a discussion about les nuances. Nuances in language, but also in life - this includes understanding the meaning of a word or action but also why it is necessary to use it in that context. Much of my time here in France is spent learning to understand the nuances of everyday life, and I constantly am trying to educate myself further in this.

Best thing about the days getting longer: I get to walk back home as the sun is setting. Just beautiful.

Tuesday at the end of one of my lessons, when one of my students got my contact information to set up  private lessons, all the others asked “what’s going on Rebecca?” I explained that she wanted to take private lessons and they responded “we can do that?!” After explaining a bit further, they took down my e-mail as well, excited for the opportunity to see me and speak English more. It is moments like this that make me feel like I am making a difference here, and make me happy to teach every day. 

Favorite boulangerie with the best baguette in town

Wednesday evening greeted us with a surprise visit. This entire week, a business has been coming into the apartments, dorms, and classrooms to do measurements as they are planning on doing some remodeling*** Getting a notification for this last week, I went to the secretary and set up a rendez-vous for them to come in the apartment when I would be here, so they could get in to all the rooms. That rendez-vous was supposed to be on Monday: it came and went with no visitors. I thought this was weird, but again, nothing really surprises me about this place. So when 6pm Wednesday rolled around and I heard 3 people speaking French in the hallway of our apartment, I opened up my bedroom door to find one of the maintenance men and two women with blueprints and measuring tape looking quite shocked to see me. They explained that they would be doing the measurements now. Normally, if I were living in the States, I would have seen this as a huge inconvenience: I had made an appointment and they had not kept it, and then came into my apartment unannounced at a time that I wasn’t expecting them. But the funny thing about living here is that it changes you a bit: I said it was fine and asked if there was anything I could do to help. Maybe this flexibility will continue when I return home?****

Thursday was another busy day of classes. Sometimes at the end of this day, I feel a bit discouraged, as the last class I have is always my worst behaved and I leave my workweek feeling less than satisfied. This week was the opposite. We were working on the second week of a two week project about football/soccer (they learn both British and American English). Their task this week was to make a skit about soccer and perform it. I had been worried about letting this class work in small groups, as their talking normally is hard enough to control, but they were great! They were concentrated on making their scripts as good as they could make them, asking me for grammar or vocabulary help, and even practiced before performing as I had coached them to do so. Leaving school for the weekend yesterday, I felt fulfilled for the first time after that Thursday class and am hoping it will continue. 

The rest of the today will be nice and relaxing: a private lesson with a student, shopping, reading and a movie – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Yes, in our little cinema in Apt, Walter Mitty is playing. For now, I am off to enjoy that sunshine….

*Correction: nearly every day. But still, this is the sunniest place I’ve ever visited or lived!

**Rallongé and allongé basically mean the same thing: lengthened – though from what I’ve read online rallongé is more to mean extended in a general sense, rather than allongé means the enlongating of object. So when we were talking about the days being rallongé, this means the days are getting longer.

***This couldn’t come soon enough. Seriously, really old buildings here folks!

****Unlikely. Very unlikely.