On Monday I literally just hung around the house and went to Intermarche to buy the most basic groceries, heavy on the vegetables and protein after a week of stew, bread, potatoes, more bread, and Polish prepackaged cookies. I think I spent most of my day laying in bed, on the internet, watching tv shows online, and I think I recall a few hours of staring off into space. For some reason that 5 hour TGV ride really took a lot out of me.
Tuesday was my birthday (25!) and Mardi Gras, so I had plans to go to Nice with my Canadian Counterpart to take part in the festivities. I woke up to the door buzzer sounding and found the postman had my package from Leigh! What perfect timing after nearly a month in transit! The box contained a new pair of jeans ($1 for a pair of skinny Levis, God Bless America), two t-shirts ("Save the Wild Things" and "En Francais, S'il vous plait"), the first season of True Blood on DVD, a wishbone necklace from Christmas, and a beautiful scarf Leigh's mom found for me. It was like a mini, belated Christmas and it made me so very happy.
The Mardi Gras parade was a bit more of a family/kids thing than either of us thought because in North America women get plastered and take off their tops. Neither of us had plans to take off anything, but we did feel the need to make our own fun on top of watching the kick-ass floats go by. We went to Monoprix and bought some mixer type liquids and made drinks on the sidewalk- not sketchy at all! It was actually really fun, even with the massive numbers of children, and I took some great pictures of the floats. We also managed to stumble upon a pizza place that sells 33 cm pizzas for 5 euros, can't beat that!
Yesterday I had to work, but not for the lycee. A few weeks ago I took on a tutoring student from the school where I work. Then last week I took on a student whose mother works at my school but doesn't speak any English so she can't help her daughter. I scheduled both students for lessons yesterday for 2 hours each, plus I had to commute from Antibes to Nice (takes about an hour on the bus) so it was a long day. I think it went pretty well, though I will hesitate before suggesting 2 hour lessons in the future. With a student 1:1 it's really hard to fill the second hour without resorting to chatting so they can practice their listening comprehension and spontaneous expression skills (taken from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Some really good news is that the second student's little brother also needs a tutor, so from now on when I travel to Nice on my day off I will teach both children for an hour each. Now the challenge is putting together good lessons for them because my students are 6eme, 3eme, and 1er levels- each different with different needs and none in classes that I teach normally!
Anyway, after all that I was completely exhausted. I came home planning to take a nap and maybe eat something I would "cook" for myself, but luckily my Canadian Counterpart had 1) bought a cheese and ham tarte she couldn't eat by herself and 2) bought me a birthday cake! So I wound up having a real dinner and we had a tiny party consisting of the two of us and our friend Katrina who was an assistante last year. It was so much fun to host someone at the apartment. I even cleaned my room and reorganized the couches so it looks like a living room again.
Now I don't know what to do with myself today aside from going to Carrefour, which I really don't want to do but must. I managed to break my brand new 6 euro earbuds and I need a real stock of food in the house to have any hope of not living off of quick foods from the patisserie (and growing out of my new jeans sent from Leigh). Otherwise I have no plans and a whole day off. Maybe I'll stay home and be productive or maybe the spirit will hit me and I'll think of someplace nice to visit for the afternoon.
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