Paris. France. September 4th.

I BOOKED MY FLIGHT!!!!!!!

I am unbelievably stoked right now.



I'll be flying from San Diego to Denver on August 7th so I can spend a bit of time with the fam before I leave for good, then on September 4th, I'll be flying from Denver to Paris - PARIS! I will be flying into Paris, France. That's in Europe. Like - across an entire ocean. Can you tell I've never been out of the country before? (No, Mexico doesn't count...)

My plans after that are as follows:
I believe I will try to spend September 4th in Paris, taking it in, being a tourist, eating a baguette, i will not, however, go see the eiffel tower. If I can find a cheap hostel to stay in, or if I know anyone there, I will stay for the night, then head up to Lille in the morning, where I will again, take in the city, go see where my school is, hopefully meet up with some other teachers, and try to learn what it means to be Lillois, and why the French think of their northern inhabitants as somewhat... different from the rest of the country. After failing at this for two weeks, and having a lot of fun in the process, I will head down to Bordeaux for the last week of September and stay with Amanda, speak French, drink wine, and talk a lot about what to expect during the next year of my life.

The actual job starts on October 1st, but I'm pretty sure a few days before we have some training or something - I really don't know yet.

According to the email chains that have been going around between all of us teachers, I am like.. one of the only people who has not gotten their contract in the mail yet... so I am waiting patiently for that - which will tell me the school I'm teaching at, give me a contact name, and allow me to try and plan where i will live.

More updates (hopefully!!) soon!

All The Kids In The Room Raise Your Hand!

So! I got an email this morning from Marjorie, our contact for the whole France thing, with the names and email addresses of everyone else going to my "academy", which apparently consists of a huge piece of land wherein I have no idea where I am going. There are about 35 of us, and I've been chatting through gmail with about 12 of them so far; none of them, so far, are actually in Lille like me, so the "academy" is a pretty wide area.

It's really nice to finally be able to talk with other people who have been in the same boat as me for the past several months. A lot of people have gotten their arrêté de nominations already, so they know exactly which part of the academy they'll be in, but a few others have emailed back and told me that they are with me doing the whole "impatiently-waiting" thing. I've been checking the mail every day hoping to get that little packet in the mail that will give me some peace of mind as and allow me to be able to find a place to live.

So - a small update, but a big one!

Seven Months

Well, there hasn't been much to post over the last two months. I got into France, and then I waited, waited and waited some more. Today I got the first piece of news regarding my trip that I had gotten since that initial letter, and it turns out, I have been assigned to a seven-month, secondary school contract, beginning on October 1. There were initially two types of contracts available, seven and ten-month, to primary school, secondary school, and college. I believe the people applying whose French was at a more senior level than mine were awarded the ten month contracts - and truthfully speaking, I do wish I had gotten one, but seven months is still good. I guess I can say with certainty now that I will be gone from about September to May, which is not the September - September I had originally planned, but, at least I'll be back in San Diego in time for the summer beaches :).

In regards to other aspects of my trip, I am still waiting (patiently) for my Arrêté de Nomination, which will provide me the actual school I am teaching in, and allow me to drive up to LA and get my teacher's visa, but that will arrive, hopefully, sometime in July. It's coming down to the point where this is really turning real. I am leaving the country, going where I know not a soul, teaching in a language I do not "know" - not like I know English... It's going to be a lot of fun, I truly hope, but I know that challenges will appear as well, and each day closer this gets the realer it gets too. This is crazy.