Life as an assistant

I've been here in Dax for just about two months now - doesn't seem like it's been that long! Two months and I've only written one blog post, yikes.

My life for the past two months has mostly consisted of eating more Friotellas (that I talked about in my last post), having a pretty lax schedule and trying to settle in. Oh and getting a two-week vacation after only teaching for three weeks. For most people in the U.S., that is the amount of vacation they get during an entire year. In France, you get a minimum of five weeks (paid) vacation, but usually it's six. I remember a teacher I had while studying abroad told us that by the time December rolls around, if you haven't taken your full five weeks of vacation for the year, some places will tell you just not to come in at all until the new year. Sounds awesome, although I don't know how entirely true it is throughout the entire country.

unfortunately not what my local
boulangerie actually looks like

And it's not just in vacations that the French really know the joie de vivre: most people work 35 hour work weeks (they think Americans are crazy for our 40+ ones, but let's be realistic it's more like 60, sometimes 80); France has its own version of the Spanish siesta, where shops close anywhere between 1130 am & 130 pm; French schoolchildren only go to school 4 days a week; everything is closed Sunday, maybe the boulangerie will open for an hour or two so we can get our beloved baguettes; and most places here in the south(west) are closed Monday too. At first the siesta thing and being closed Sunday/Monday was annoying since I'm used to the convenience of 24-hour grocery stores to get my cookie dough fill (by the way they DO sell it here!), but when you think about it, it's a pretty awesome lifestyle. And it makes me feel less like a bum if I do absolutely nothing all day Sunday knowing nothing is open anyway.

Anyway, going back to where I left off in my last post, when I was bored out of my mind being the first assistant to arrive in Dax, I took a little day trip to Biarritz- a resort-town renowned for surfing. Even though it was late September, there was still a huge number of surfers there (the waves are apparently at their peak in early fall), although the day I went the waves were pretty huge and almost no one was surfing. Biarritz is cool, but the main attraction is definitely the beach. There's not a whole lot of other touristy things to do, although I did see the Roche de la Vierge (Rock of the Virgin) and go to the Maison du Chocolat, which the guidebook falsely described as if you were stepping into a real-life Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

La Grande Plage in Biarritz

By the last week of September, we had all arrived. In total we are 8 assistants: 2 Americans girls (Emily & I), 2 English girls (Rosalyn & Natasha), 2 Canadian girls (Emma & Sherry), 1 Spanish girl (Elena) and 1 Honduran girl (Keidy). Five of us teach in primary schools and the other 3 are with middle and high schools. I teach at 2 primary schools with Keidy- one just 5 minutes walking from where we live and the other about 15 min by bike. Although our contracts said October 1, we actually didn't teach the first week. We mostly observed classes and had our orientation meeting to get all of our paper work sorted out. By this point I was finally feeling my nerves cooling and that I was getting the hang of life here - I finally had internet, I got my mobile phone set up as well as my bank account. Although, apparently I signed up with the snobby bank --BNP Paribas, which is a partner bank of Bank of America-- and it took forever to get my debit card. 

Like I said earlier, I have a pretty relaxed schedule: I only work 12 hours a week. French kids don't go to school on Wednesdays, so my 12 hours are spread out between Mon, Tues, Thurs & Fri. The school kids also get 2 hours for lunch and at least two breaks for recess, not to mention separate time for gym where they'll go across the street to the park, go to the pool for swimming or just play in the schoolyard. My nine year-old self would have been super jealous of these kids.

A typical day consists of me having one or two classes in the morning, coming back for a 2 or more hour break at lunch and then having two to four classes in the afternoon. My class load varies though, for example on Mondays I have four and on Tuesdays I only have two. I have no Thursday morning classes, but then have six classes on Fridays that I wish were a bit more spread out throughout the week. But still, I can't complain.

Friotellas nom

Besides classes, I have a nice little bundle of extracurriculars going on the side: Monday evenings I'll be co-leading a conversation class with Natasha for teachers interested in learning English; Tuesday nights I take a French class with a couple of the other assistants, usually followed by sushi; Wednesday we have off so during the day Emma and I take Spanish (which is interesting since it's taught for French people, so we're learning to speak Spanish through French), usually followed or preceded by going to French Coffee for a Friotella; Thursdays I go to a philosophy discussion group, which I initially started going to purely with the intention of improving my French language but I've actually quite started to enjoy the philosophy aspect of it; and Fridays I hate my life with six classes to struggle through.

We also end up going to LeClerc (the local supermarket) several times a week to pick up things here and there, but also to stop by the cafe to creep on/talk to a guy that works there that is, like, totally mignon (cute). 

Some Saturdays there are also rugby games, which are a lot of fun to go to. In Dax, Rugby takes more precedence than football (aka soccer for you non-cultured folk), so people get really excited about going to the games. There's one this Saturday but we planned on having our Thanksgiving dinner that day since we all work Thursday, so we're going to have to figure out what to do about that - drama!

Cheers!