"For God's Sake!" I can hear you saying, "Get a grip woman, students are always broke", which is true. But when I'm broke in England I can eat beans on toast for a bit until the next payday. Here we don't have a toaster and the French don't have baked beans. Soup and plastic cheese it is until I pay off the English overdraft. Also before my family start panicking, I will survive until payday, I have methods that totally don't involve prostitution.
Luckily for me, I'm currently not a student. I have an actual job with actual responsibilities involving actual children. My official title is "assistante de langue" so in theory I assist the English teachers and take small groups for conversation. In reality I have to take entire classes of up to 30 students who may be 11 or 21, variety being the spice of life. This is where I wish I had paid more attention in the 2 hours of teacher training. Luckily my 11 year olds are adorable, if slightly hyperactive and the 21yr olds aren't nearly as scary as they first looked. In fact some of them are even horribly good-looking and I have to spend far too much effort trying not to turn into a giggling schoolgirl. According to my teacher this is slightly undesirable. In her own words, my older students are violent and will steal my things. Lush.
We paid another visit to Marseille last week and bravely ascended that massive hill with a church on top. I know it looks all dramatic and lovely and the view is spectacular but seriously, who thought that building a church on top of a massive hill would attract decent congregations? And they wonder why church attendance is falling. Even an interior this beautiful would not drag me up that hill every single day.
Anyway back to that view.
For a city with such a bad reputation it looks pretty damn cool. Speaking of said reputation I feel that it should be noted that I haven't been shot or stabbed. According to the incredible American lady who helped with our teacher training this is because "Marseille is only dangerous if you do drugs or join a gang. So don't do drugs or join a gang." Ok Miss!
Having survived Marseille my parents deemed the South of France safe enough to visit. We spent a couple of days at the house near Nimes having a lovely relaxing time. At least that's what should have happened. Instead we spent the Friday doing garden chores. Oh joy. However I am now an expert Persimmon Picker so no one can tell me that year abroad students learn nothing!
In all seriousness we did have a great time, even when a misunderstanding with a neighbour led to the top of our tree being lopped off. I also got to eat proper food that involved protein - heaven when there is a distinct lack of meat in your life.
To add to my persimmon-picking skills I am now a conqueror of mountains. I can scale any rock face, any crevasse, any glacier. Everest is at my mercy. As long as Everest is no higher than 1011m and closely resembles this:
It may be no Everest but I am still very proud of myself. And just to prove I got to the top:
Who knows, maybe I will become a wild intrepid exporer? Better start training now...
Having rambled on for far too long (see what I did there? eh?) I will leave you all with a picture of the gang from Halloween. We showed the French what scary really means.
