"Madame, how do you say PS3 in English?"

At some point during the train ride from Nantes to Strasbourg last December, it struck me that I was content not only because I was headed to Strasbourg, a city I love.  I was also content because I knew I would be happy to return to the Vendée...not because it's known as the most beautiful region of France, but because I have built so many strong new relationships in the area with students, colleagues, other assistants, and friends.  I always love being on a train that is taking me to a friend.

So, I enjoyed my return to work after the Christmas vacation.  Even though I still see most of my classes for short periods of twenty-five minutes twice a month, I finally started feeling like I knew my students well enough to create lesson plans that interest them.  My terminale students (seniors) at the lycée are busy preparing for the Bac - their huge final exam in June.  The Bac is, in my opinion, a mix of good and bad.  In the U.S., students are constantly tested and measured against others state- and nation-wide starting in elementary school.  From my experience teaching in a public middle school, it seemed like students were always preparing for or taking one test or another - at least three per year.  I can attest to the amount of stress the tests put on students, and the amount of time that was spent teaching them to eat a good breakfast the morning of the test, tricks like sucking on peppermint candy to jog the brain, and how to properly do eenie-meenie-miney-moe if they were stuck between answers on a multiple choice question.  It didn't leave a lot of room for learning what they actually should have known for the test in the first place, which is only a small fraction of what could be learned about the world.

The silver lining to that system is that American students are very used to standardized tests by the time they reach senior year of high school.  In theory, the Bac in France should be very passable; the problem is that, when French students reach it, they have only ever had two examens blancs (mock tests): one in January of their 3ème year (around 8th grade - my students at the collège just took it) and one in January of their last year of lycée.  They also have very little support with things like test anxiety and test-taking strategies.

Outside of school, my friends and I celebrated the fête de rois, or l'Épiphanie on January 6 - the Epiphany, in honor of the three kings.  Laura told us that it is a huge holiday in Spain; though it isn't a jour férié (bank holiday) in France, it is widely celebrated well into the new year with les galettes du rois - kings' cakes.  In the Vendée, many galettes are made in brioche style (our region's main bakery specialty).  Inside each galette is a small toy; the person who finds the toy in his or her slice (hopefully not breaking a tooth) is the "king" and gets to wear the crown that comes with the cake.  Some boulangeries even have punch cards for galettes (buy five, get the sixth free; etc.).  At our dinner, we made crêpes, exchanged gifts, and crowned Elyse post-galette.

My first weekend back in January, I was cleared to play at my first (and probably only) band concert with the Phalhar of la Roche; we went to a very small town fifteen minutes away called Chaize-le-Vicomte to play in their hall.  It was especially fun for the flutist and clarinetist who sit on either side of me; they have extensive family living in the town.  I was happy to have a carful of fans in the audience as well; Lisa, Laura, Elyse, and Henry came to listen and cheer in the front row!

I have also gotten to know Nantes quite well in the past month.  I've been back and forth at least once or twice each week to visit different language schools and get to know the university.  It seems I have a job for the semester as a professor in the foreign language section of the Université de Nantes.  Because of re-structuring of the department, three L2 (second-year) American civilization courses were left without a professor; in cases like this, they post the position as an enseignant vacataire job and hope that someone with more animation than a coat rack and some knowledge of the English language steps forward.  Since the classes are on Wednesdays, my free day, I sent in my CV.  Paperwork-wise, I am working with my employers to try to figure out if this is in fact possible to pair with my job as far as my contract and visa go; in real life, I've started teaching anyway.  And I love it already.  I teach three classes of around fifty students each; there are topics, required readings, and an outline from another professor than I can follow and an exam I need to prepare students for, but otherwise, I am free to teach whatever and however I want.  My students are fun, motivated, grateful to finally have a professor...and, surprisingly, not phased by having a professor only about four years older than they are.  To my relief, I realized during my lesson planning that I remember a lot more from AP U.S. History in high school than I thought I did!  And I've realized already that looking at America through the lens of a European is somehow more fascinating to me than learning about America in America.  I'm sure I'll learn at least as much from this course as my students will.

Two days until our two-week winter vacation.  I'll be leaving France for the first time since September to experience two new cities (and countries): Berlin and Prague!