Nearly Christmas!!

Well, it's almost Christmas vacation! (I leave tomorrow today and still have a million things to do, YIKES!)

There was a strike at my high school; the teachers were striking because the academy wants to cut two of their programs. I think they're worried that in a few years, the whole school will just shut down. The strike started last Wednesday, so I didn't have classes Thursday or Friday (I went to see The Hobbit on my unexpected days off). On Sunday, the other assistant and I were invited to go see La Course Landaise (regional bullfighting). Of course I had already seen a bit of it at he Cocardes and Championnat at the end of September, but this time it was in an indoor arena -- one of the first of its kind, and had just opened a week or so before. One of the younger professors (who was also invited by our lovely librarian) drove everyone, which was really nice.

The show was basically exactly what I was expecting, though quite a bit shorter than the Championnat (thank goodness). I saw some "familiar" faces that had been at the Cocardes and Championnat, which was interesting.

The senior class of the local high school did a little show to entertain the kids -- they dressed up as Santa Clauses and played musical chairs (except with a calf running around trying to knock everyone/everything over) and did a dance routine. They also apparently have a rivalry between two villages (the one with the arena, and another not far away). So they had older teenagers representing each village do some competitions.

For one of the competitions, they had to do a relay (take water from a big bucket into a smaller bucket, crawl through a tunnel, run up and over a ramp, and empty their buckets into a vial). Sounds simple? Except then they put an angry bull in the middle of the ring. So suddenly it wasn't so easy.

In another game, 4 people from each team got into a contraption that was basically 4 giant inner-tubes stacked on each other and were given a giant hula hoop to hold (they could stick their arms out between the innertubes). Then, yep, you guessed it! They let an angry bull loose in the ring. The object of the game was to get the bull to charge you and slip the hoop around it, so that it went completely through the hula hoop. (Yes, they were wearing helmets, but not much else by way of protection.)

Suffice it to say, contraptions were completely wrecked. But I don't think anyone got seriously injured. I think I'll stick to my wild and crazy hobby of reading books after school, but it was fun to watch. And all the kids clearly knew what they were doing, so though it sounds pretty unsafe to me, I'm sure it wasn't actually that much of a risk.

Other than that, I have just been plugging away at grad school applications. (Finally completely and totally done. Just waiting on a few letters of recommendation and then it's on to the next stage: waiting anxiously while university after university inevitably rejects me. ha.)

I am quite ready for Christmas break (even if I'm not at all prepared for it). All of the professors have been getting sick and the kids are getting antsy. But my 11/12 year olds remain as ADORABLE as ever (dare I say, maybe even more adorable???). I think I might be starting to get somewhere with some of my high schoolers (some groups are just zombies, but other groups are coming along). I've got to find a way to lay off on the cookies, though. These kids are breaking the bank. But I do kind of love how much they love the chocolate oatmeal cookies since they're a family recipe and my personal favorite cookie in the whole wide world.

Other than that, I'm really not doing much of anything. (I hope to be changing this when this break is over and I am finally free of the grad school application shackle.) I got a wonderful package from my lovely best friend yesterday, and I am now equipped with fake snow and (more) tea (no such thing as too much tea!), a good book, and a good many other things besides. My mom sent me a package, too; I got a packet of postcards from my aunt and uncle; and I might be (finally, maybe) almost done with paperwork to get housing assistance.

Tomorrow I jet off to Lyon, then Geneva and Marseille during the Christmas holidays. I was really excited to go paragliding near Geneva, but it turns out that they're not open in December. I'll just have to find some other thrilling, daredevil activity to occupy my time. I'm also super excited to go visit CERN and the large hadron collider (*nerd*).

So with that, lovely people, I shall leave you. If you have any suggestions on things to see in or around any of those cities, drop me a line in the comments. Oh, and DFTBA.

(p.s. I have photos and video -- mostly video -- from bullfighting on Sunday, but I'm not sure if I'll have time to edit it/get it up before I leave, so it might have to wait until I get back in January)

Tri-Lingual "Frenchgiving", and "How Do I Get There"

This week was Thanksgiving! I did lessons about it with almost all of my classes -- teaching them some vocabulary, telling them the story of Thanksgiving (the simple "Disney" version, not getting into all the strife that happened afterward), and having them say what they are thankful for. The lesson mostly went over really well -- and I even had a couple kids say that they were thankful for me being in class with them (d'awww). It was an interesting mix of things they were thankful for -- some of the kids were thankful for Christmas/presents, a lot were thankful for births of cousins, a lot were thankful for their families/parents/siblings, one young boy was thankful for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and there were some touching stories as well. I had one high schooler really trying to butter me up (thinking he'd get more cookies), who said that he was thankful for me making cookies, for me helping them with their English, and for me cooking for them. And with the high schoolers, instead of vocabulary, I had them pretend to be turkeys and they had to convince me to eat the other turkeys instead of themselves. That's probably the most amusing activity. 10/10 A+++ Do recommend.

On Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving, I bought myself one sad little slice of turkey and some potatoes to mash up. Except, turns out, those potatoes weren't actually for mashing (there are special mashing potatoes???) and so the mashed potatoes were horrible. But I did get to Skype with my family (where they set me in front of the pumpkin pie I couldn't eat -- thanks mom! xD). Friday, I was busy making more cookies (the third batch of no-bakes in three days) and getting ready for our Thanksgiving à la française ("French style") that Kirstin was hosting on Saturday.

The saddest Thanksgiving dinner ever. (And my Disney Princess advent calendar. ....I'm an adult....)

Friday night/Saturday morning, I even attempted to make apple cider (since the only cider you can get here is the alcoholic kind). Unfortunately, I got a little distracted wrapping Christmas presents for my parents and all the water boiled off and the apples burned a little bit. "No big deal," I told myself, "I can fix this". And I tried. Oh goodness, did I try. Saturday morning, after letting the apples cool overnight, I mashed them all up and tried to strain them as best I could. The recipe also called for cheese cloth to use to squeeze all the juice out of the apple pulp. But, as hard as I looked, I could not find cheese cloth anywhere. I ended up using a clean t-shirt as cheese cloth -- putting the apple pulp in the shirt and squeezing the ever-loving daylights out of it. And even after all that, the burnt taste unfortunately came through in the cider and I had to throw it all away. An exercise in futility. C'est la vie ("That's life").

The beginnings of the apple cider. I had SUCH high hopes...

Saturday morning was also supposed to be the Christmas market in Dax. But um, search as we did, there was no Christmas market to be found. :(

BUT,  I went with one of the other Americans from Dax down to Biarritz where her friend was having a big Thanksgiving get together.

First off, Biarritz is beautiful. It's on the Atlantic coast, and Kirstin has an apartment with a FANTASTIC view of the ocean. I ended up spending the night in a B&B not far from where Kirstin lives (I didn't think there'd be enough room in the apartment), and it was honestly just lovely. It didn't have the same view, but the bed was tempurpedic (aka: HEAVEN) and breakfast was incredible.

Tempuurrrrrpedic. (I need to buy one of these someday)

Adorable room

View out the kitchen window

Basically, Thanksgiving was a blast. The food was good, the company was even better, and we spent the evening laughing and drinking wine and talking and playing games. Basically it was perfect, and much appreciated. We even had a couple Spanish-speakers, and a French girl (Kirstin's roommate, her roommate's friend, and a friend of hers). So we spent the night swapping back and forth from English to French (to "franglais") and learning some useful words in Spanish.

The lovely Kirstin with the wine (and Becky)

Molly rocking the mashed potatoes!

Mulled wine, yeah!

Beautiful flowers

"Turkey" (aka chicken)

Carving the "turkey"

Schooled on carving meat the French way (with a spoon and a fork)

Getting ready to eat!

Belated food picture

Another belated food picture

Turkey turkey turkey!

At dinner!

This morning, I went down to the center of town to see when the bus left for the train station (my train was at 12:30), and had some time to wander around. Originally, I thought I was a lot further from the ocean than I was, so I was going to find a cafe to sit at to kill some time. But then, all of a sudden, I looked to my right down an alley between some buildings and BAM! Ocean. Unfortunately, I couldn't get down that alley to the ocean, but all of a sudden I had a purpose: "There's the thing; how do I get there?"

First view of the ocean

And get there I did. Needless to say, the ocean is spectacularly beautiful. And there were plenty of people surfing. I decided to go down to the water to stick my hand in... I went wading unintentionally. Basically, I was standing at the edge of the water and bent down to stick my hand in when I saw a little baby wave rolling in. I was like, "Aw, how cute? Come here baby wave!" But as it came closer, I saw that baby wave wasn't so baby after all. It crashed in around my feet and knocked me back a bit. My pants got wet. Luckily my boots are mostly waterproof, so only the barest hint of damp got through them. I did, however, manage to avoid falling completely on my butt. And honestly, it was just so ridiculously funny that I just had to laugh at myself.

All the crazy surfers

On the way down to the beach

OCEAN

This beach is seriously beautiful

GPOY (p.s. lookit my fancy new coat!)

When I got off the beach, I saw what looked like (at first glance) a little garden on an island in the middle of the ocean. But there were people walking around on it! So once again, I asked myself: "The thing! How do I get there?!" (There was a bridge.)

The island (not from the original view)

Bridge to the island

There were a couple locks along the railing; it's apparently a popular thing in France

Lighthouse!

As I finally started walking back to the bus stop, I had a sort of epiphany: when it comes to physical places, I am very good at finding a way to get to where I want to go. Oh, yeah, I get lost along the way, horribly so at times, but I generally get to the thing that I see from a distance and say to myself, "THAT! I need to find THAT!" But when it comes to real life? I'm not actually very good at the "How do I get there?" game. I know where I am, and I see where I want to be, but the steps in between to get me there are just never as simple or as obvious (or as risk-free, in general). So sometimes I don't even dare to step at all. Basically, I'm challenging myself this year to take those scary steps (hellooooo grad school applications; yes I will finish you.....), to forge ahead even when there is no evident path.

Life, unlike cities, doesn't have a map. And that can be terrifying. But the more I wander around cities with no map, the more I get lost and find things that are even more exciting than what I was originally looking for, the more I want to find those things in life, too.  /extended metaphor

So today, in one last "spirit of Thanksgiving" post, I'd like to say that I'm thankful for my family; I'm thankful for the amazing friends I have back home who've been keeping in contact through Facebook and sometimes keeping me sane; I'm thankful to be here in France; I'm thankful for all the people I've met here so far (and all the people I've yet to meet); and I'm making a promise to be more bold. (To boldly go, as it were.) Here's to life and taking the scary steps forward. Tchin, tchin!