Well, I've been in france for about a month and a half now, and everything's going really well. teaching has mostly been fine, with no really problematic students - just a few teachers who don't really seem to know what I'm supposed to be here for, or who hand me a 'lesson plan' five minutes before class that basically comprises of a piece of paper with a picture and some vocab that I have to get the students to talk about for an hour...pulling at strings. having said that, this happened for the second time today and the class actually went really well - I was very happy with how they worked, the ideas they came up with, etc, and I got them to have a debate at the end, which is always good.

my french has been improving very gradually, but I'm hoping the pace is going to start to pick up a bit because a new guy has moved in with us today who is american but has lived in france for the last six years and speaks absolutely fluently, without an accent. up until now we've been me, an italian girl and a chilean girl, so although we all speak french together, we can't always correct each other on phrasing, pronunciation, etc. having a 'true' french speaker here will be brilliant.

as for other stuff, I'm going to leave it to my blogspot space. the purpose of this journal was mostly to test out this pretty skin by `kjherstin, which I think is lovely :] got to get back to lesson-planning now - I'm teaching my 1^ers about guy fawkes night tomorrow. I'm gutted that they don't celebrate it here, I want fireworks and sparklers and bonfires and mulled wine and hot dogs...

ps. the wind is CRAZY here. I'd never heard of the mistral before arriving, and in the first few weeks any sign of a slight breeze or gust of wind would send the french people around me into a tizz, which at first I thought was sillyness. but then the real thing came...wow. galeforce - and I've been told it gets to a point where you can't leave the house because it's so strong.
good news: lots of haiku inspiration!