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.

I'll miss you most of all, when autumn leaves start to fall....

Reflecting on my last few weeks here in the U.S., I have been thinking about how many things I am going to miss about this country. Again, I am so excited to spend this year abroad, but everyone always misses home, right? So here's my list of things that I am anticipating missing from my homeland:

1. Family and friends. I think this really goes without explaining but living an ocean away from all the people closest to me is going to be really difficult.

2. Color Guard. It's hard to think that an activity that I have performed and instructed in for the past 10 years does not exist in the country I am moving to. I will miss it dearly as well as all my best friends in the activity, my Interplay family, and all of the students I instruct. It's gonna be weird to not be around for the fall or winter season.

IP love. <3

Will miss the students at Hudsonville (above) and Portage Northern (below). Enjoy every moment performing this year!

It's hard enough being an age-out, will miss performing in this activity as well as being able to easily watch it.

3. Driving in my car. With all the instructing and out of town friends I have, I am used to doing a lot of driving. I actually really love it - the freedom of driving down an open road. Going to really miss that liberating feeling.

4. Working a 40 hour work week. Yeah, you heard it - I really think I am going to miss that. I am the type of person who genuinely likes being busy. I feel like I am going to have to try to not be bored with the 12 hour work week that I will have in France.

5. Fall in Michigan. I am so happy that I am living in the South of France, with it's warm climate and beautiful sunny days by the coast. But autumn in the mitten is my favorite season of the year, and I already know that I will miss the beautiful colors of the foliage and brisk afternoons walks at home.

Pure Michigan.

Looks exactly like my drive home. Who wouldn't love to drive down this everyday?

And who can forget about my love of corn mazes!

Love the apple orchards in the mitten, a fall tradition!

6. Peanut Butter. Kind of in love this stuff, and it is definitely not the same overseas.

My american guilty pleasure.

7. Holidays at home. Especially my favorite, Thanksgiving, which doesn't exist in France. And get this, pumpkins are really hard to find! Looks like no pumpkin pie this year.

Anyone want to send this in a care package?

8. Baking. I don't have an oven in my apartment, which means that I can't practice my favorite stressed-out pastime of baking goodies.

Deserved a re-post.

9. Being able to turn on the TV or radio and easily understand every word.

10. Easily getting things whenever I want them. There are no 24 hour stores in France and most things are closed on Sunday.

A little bit of Michigan 24-hour accessibility.

11. Country Music. Summertime, beer, tractors and trucks all sung with a twang. I know it's pathetic, but it sings to my soul! 

12. Lake Michigan. Although I will be 2-3 hours away from the Mediterranean coast, I am going to miss the easy drive to South Haven, my freshwater paradise.

Just a typical evening at Lake Michigan.

And the beautiful Michigan sunsets over the lake, gonna miss that too!

I'm sure I could go on with things that I will miss, but that is not the point of this experience. I am going to France to be thrown out of my comfort zone and to learn to thrive within this new world, to grow as a person and find new things to become accustomed to. Still, I thought I would show just a few aspects of home that I will surely be missing while I'm gone.

10 jours and then I will be gone for 9 months. Time is passing very quickly...

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.