First day of school!

Castres, France

10:09pm

Great first day at school.  I taught two classes of about 20 students all by myself, and I assisted in three other classes.  The school is paying for my lunch, which is great, and is going to save me about 10E per day, which is going to add up.

My schedule: I’ll be teaching at the high school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  And at the middle school on Wednesdays and Fridays.  On Mondays, not sure.  I may actually just ‘be a student’ and tag along in some history classes at the high school.  All in French, and totally awesome.  Something I’ve always wanted to do: be in classes presented to a French audience.  Tomorrow morning, I’m going to join the ‘gym class’ at 8am and play volleyball with the students.  That should be fun, and then shower and get dressed and off to the middle school.

I got tons of compliments on how well dressed I am.  From the female students.  Thanks Zara!  And it was pretty funny: I saw Alice again and she told me that her mom spoke to her about me, saying, “He’s so nice!  Just like a regular American!  But SMART!”  Haha.  See: just by speaking to her in Italian, she assumes I’m smart.  I’m telling ya, learning foreign languages is such a good investment of my time and money. 

And in general, the students seem to like me a lot.  This whole ‘American’ thing gets lots of “ooohhhs”.  And then add in New York and it’s a bunch of “aaahhhhhs”.  Haha.  I had nothing to do with where I was born, but sure, okay, I’ll milk it for all it’s worth!

Dominique (Veronique’s husband) is going to drive me to the school tomorrow, but after that, I’ll probably be taking the bus.  Which is not a bad thing.  I will have time to listen to my Pimsleur language lessons. 

The movie continues to occupy a lot of my and Ronnie's time.  With our main investor.  With distributors.  With our agent.  With all the players.  So much work...  I return home from class and there are always many emails back and forth with Los Angeles, New York, etc. 

I’m feeling better too about everything.  Now that I’m at the school and all that, I feel a little more settled and at home. 

We also went to Alice’s new host family’s house.  To drop Alice off.  We were invited in and I met her new family.  Very nice older retired couple.  And two cats.  Alice has a very nice room there.  15 minutes from Castres.  And the most comfortable easy chair!  Right in her room.  I’m totally jealous.  I sat in it for five minutes and nearly fell asleep.  Ahhh…

Finally, super stoked with my French.  I know I keep saying it over and over, but wow: I speak it really well.  And it’s only getting better and better.  Even my understanding: I understand the television more than ever.  So all is well.  I think my level of French will jump in these next 7 weeks.  Actually, I’m pretty certain of it.

I’m heading to bed early tonight.  Not only have to wake early, but I’m exhausted as it is already, and can barely keep my eyes open.  Later!

P.S. - I heard back from Shanghai.  No Facebook where I will be living and studying.  She told that the free enterprise zone is an hour east.  So in order to use Facebook while in China, I will have to go crosstown, an hour's journey.  Hmmm, maybe I'll check it like once a month or something.  Truly fascinating though.  No Facebook.  No Twitter.  I'm hoping that I will have access to Blogger.  Hmm...