Wednesday

Today is my mid-week day off. Basically I have three day weekends (Sat-Mon), I work Tuesdays then have Wednesdays off again. Tuesday usually feels like a fake day at work when I'm happy to be there and willing to do more than the bare minimum required of me. I think this feeling is because, at that point in the week, I haven't worked in three days and I know I get to sleep in the next morning. Kind of like when you're a teenager and you get your first job. It's still a novelty so you work really hard and are happy to be there all the time and keep thinking to yourself, "I get to hang out with new people, stay out late and I get PAID for it?" Little do you know that within a month or two you'll be pissed off that you have to give up your Saturday mornings/nights to serve rude customers for minimum wage and you'll always smell like french fries, ice cream, cleaning solutions, or whatever else you frequently come into contact with at your job.

Anyway, Tuesdays are usually pretty good days for me and I'm usually in a pretty good mood. Yesterday was no exception, even to the point where I started telling my supervising teachers to keep me in mind for private tutoring. With Leigh back in the US next week I figure why not make some extra money? I won't have "my favorite person to do stuff with" anymore to distract/entertain me and during March I don't have any travel plans aside from a weekend in Italy when my friend Jescy is visiting. Plus my students are on holiday the same time I am and their families will likely have plans for them to travel, so I don't have to worry about conflicts with my own plans for February or April.

Tomorrow is Thursday, which I usually hate. I work from 10-6, which is no big deal, but I have this weird 4 hour gap between lessons from 12-4. It's too much time to just chill out in the teacher's room and not enough time to come back to Antibes for lunch or a nap. Plus there's NOTHING to do in Sophia Antipolis unless I want to get a 5 euro beer at the cafe or hang out at the bus station (no thanks to both). Last week was particularly awful because it was our first full week back from Christmas and nobody (teachers, students, me) wanted to be working again. Plus the weather was shitty, so our moods corresponded. I think I already blogged about the details of last Thursday so I won't get into it again, but anyway, I hate Thursdays. They're long and dull and I feel pretty useless for 4 hours of my 8 hour workday. Tomorrow should be better though because my Canadian counterpart has lessons on the same campus so we can be useless for 4 hours together AND we have a really annoying extra task to work on together during that time, so at least we'll accomplish something.

Fridays are usually OK. The good news is that I get to sleep in, as my first lesson is at 1pm, the bad news is that I have another annoyingly long gap between lessons with nothing to do. However, all things considered my job is pretty sweet. I get paid a liveable salary (though it could be more "liveable," hence the desire to pick up private tutoring students), tons of time off and a very part-time schedule. I can't wait for spring when my days off can be spent outside more rather than indoors wondering when the rain will stop. I also can't wait to find a book I want to read. I've been pretending to read "Bleak House" for over a month now and am only on page 140-something. I just can't do it. Call it lack of intelligence or lack of depth, but I need a classically written, interesting book that moves at a good pace and captures my interest right away. I like books that I can dive into and don't want to put down, not books that feel like eating my vegetables.

I digress....today was my mid-week day off and Leigh and I went hiking on Cap d'Antibes. We hiked most of the Tour du Cap and only turned back when we realized we needed to catch our bus home before our return tickets expired. It was supposed to rain today but luckily it was not only not raining but also a bit sunny. The post-rain views were spectacular. The water was deep blue and turbulent crashing against the rocky shores and cliff faces. We barely saw another soul while we hiked. It wasn't too strenuous, but it was nice to get a little exercise and appreciate the rare fair weather this time of year. We also sat for a bit and watched an old man fishing from land. He caught a large sardine right in front of us.

Another, unrelated note:

Leigh and I treated ourselves to a movie last night. We saw "2012" in English (with French subtitles) at the little movie theater we have here in Antibes. After about 20 local commercials the movie finally started. I have to say it was one of the more ridiculous movies I've ever seen. You could tell the creators were trying to make an "Armageddon" or "Deep Impact" type movie that brings a tear to the eye and makes you think. Instead it was typical, predictable story line about the end of the world. The end result was a nearly campy movie with sub-par to bad acting but decent special effects. Neither Leigh nor I had seen a movie in a theater in months, so it was still quite a treat. If we were in the US and paid money to see the movie we would have left feeling cheated out of our ticket money. Instead we bought candy, laughed at inappropriate moments (because the movie was so bad we sometimes cracked up while a character died a horrible death), and left feeling completely spoiled by the whole experience. It's funny, but I think we were missing the move-going experience more than the movies themselves.