Monday Morning

Monday morning I was finally sleeping peacefully when my bedroom door burst open and I sat up groggily to see a man, dressed in a workman's uniform, who saw me, stammered his apology 'excusez-moi' and shut the door. My clock said 7.30 so I went back to sleep, but tossed and turned wondering why he had come to do a job at 7.30 in the morning and what my bedroom had to do with it. It's not unusual for us to have people come into the apartment unannounced- they all have keys- but they don't come in our rooms. I made a mental note to check with reception and then got up to face the first day back at school.

I did think it unlikely that things would run entirely to plan on my first day back at school- unlikely really that anyone would have any recollection of the fact I would be coming back. And so when I went to my class and no one was there, I went to the staff room and wished the two teachers in there a happy new year. They, of course, looked at me like I had two heads, and muttered a reluctant 'bonjour'. I sat down, waiting to see if my teacher would come in as usual, and then when it was fifteen minutes into my lesson, started to feel a bit stupid and asked the teacher nearest me if she knew where Monsieur D was. 'Oh- his class is skiing this morning,' Of course. In this country it would be too much to expect a forewarning so I trudged back to the supermarket and stocked up the fridge. 

a lunchtime blog update and redesign

When I got back in the afternoon I had a class who were expecting that I wouldn't be there- because the airports are closed apparently on the East Coast of America due to the snow storms. I was baffled at how they knew this about America, yet seemed to miss the important distinction between England and America. And so once the teacher had explained the importance of having an English person to teach them English- and the true pronunciation of English she then wrote our topic up on the board; 'Colors.'

Normally I spend three quarters of an hour each with my two afternoon lessons, so when it was coming to an end, my teacher stopped me and asked if I could stay in her class for the next forty five minutes because my next teacher was skiing. Of course, I agreed, and spent the next forty five minutes doing, 'what colour is missing,', 'what is your favourite colour?', 'what is his/her/my favourite colour?' etc and left the class at three o clock when I saw my next teacher (the headteacher- my boss) standing outside her class. As she called me over, I knew what she was going to say. She said her class had been waiting for me, had I not meant to be with them at 2.15? I explained my other teacher had told me she was skiing. No, no, no, she said, that was Monsieur D. I know he was, I said, but she said you were, so I thought...and then trailed off, in utter confusion of the tenses. I apologised and she seemed okay, and just said, see you next week, but now I feel terrible and have no contact details for her to send a more coherent email to apologise and explain the misunderstanding.

And so that was my first day back, and as I read on twitter, it is meant to be the most depressing day of the year, the first Monday of January, I decided I wasn't doing too badly. The sky was blue, the temperature was mild, and it almost felt like spring, though I'm sure I won't feel quite the same when the mistral starts to blow.