momma said there'd be days like these

Today was hard. I’ve been here almost three weeks now, but for some reason today everything just caught up with me and hit me like a ton of bricks. Today was my first day of “teaching,” and in some ways it was very…enlightening. I’m using the term teaching loosely because really we’re there to talk with the students, but we don’t necessarily teach them English in the same way that a teacher would. Today consisted mostly of me talking, answering questions and all that. Let me tell you, I can only talk about myself for so long before I get sick of me. The same questions over and over. “Where do you come from?” “What..um..is your favorite author?” “What do you think of France?” “What do you think of..umm..George Bush?” (giggle giggle) You get the idea. I talked and talked, and I think I’m lucky if any of them understood a quarter of what I said. It was just tough because we’re not supposed to speak French at all, but my instinct all day was to help them understand, and in order to do that, I wanted to explain to them what I meant in a language I knew they would get. My first class was a literary terminale (seniors), so they actually understood most of what I said, and we had some good conversations about cultures and hazing (don’t ask) and stuff. My other two classes, though, were secondes (sophomores), and despite the fact that they’ve been studying English for 5, 6 years, they didn’t get much of what I said. Mostly what I got was confused stares. Essentially, I spent most of my afternoon feeling like an alien. I talked with Evan about his first day, and we seem to feel the same way about our classes. It was just a frustrating experience. I didn’t really know what to expect, and now that I do, I know this class thing is going to be harder than I would have guessed. As we all get used to each other, though, I suppose things will get better. I’m just not used to speaking English s l o w l y and using simple easy words-normally I just speak English without thinking. I know that I felt the same way learning French, but it’s darn tough being on the other side of it and then not even being able to use the native tongue to compensate. Plus, the teacher in me wants so much for them to understand, and we’re just not there yet. Oy.

On a brighter note, I bought some Nutella yesterday that I’ve been downing by the spoonful. I figure if nothing else, there’s always chocolate.