Bisoux From Besançon!

I thought it was time for an update, since in a couple of days I wont have internet for at least a month, and things have happened! Finally. Once you get back in the swing of things and in a schedule there's nothing really to talk about. School is school, no matter what country you're in.

We had vacation the week leading up to the first of November, which is All Saints Day here, which is a jour férié (I really don't know how to translate it...the literal translation is a closed day. I think national holiday works best), and it was nice to relax for at least a couple of days, but with the imminent selling of our apartment by our landlord, I pretty much just scoured the internet for apartments. I called about 20 places before finding one that was even still on the market. But it's pretty cool. We started looking so early because we were afraid we wouldn't be able to find a landlord willing to take us as renters because of our financial situation. A student and someone who is unemployed can give you problems rent-wise, and there are landlords in France who ask you to come to look at the apartment with at least 3 months worth of pay slips for both people and another person willing to help you out just in case. It's ridiculous.

The place we're in now is owned by a very old, and very French man, last name Hubert, who didn't ask us any questions about our current financial situation, and just wanted to let his apartment. He fixed it up about 2 years ago, but since he's like 90 I think it's difficult for him to get about and let people know about the apartment. Also it's on the first floor, street-side, so you get all the street traffic (but it's not a hugely busy street, so who cares anyway). We have double the space we're living in now...about 520 sq feet and 3 rooms! The pictures directly below were taken when we were cleaning up the place and getting everything in order: (also sorry for the bluuryness in advance)

The kitchen from the hallway. The front door is on the right.

The hallway from the kitchen.

The bathroom.

The bedroom "bourne."

The livingroom/salon.

Our spooky old mirror and cool Greek relief above it. Its a god-warrior in a chariot with four horses running over a man on a cloud.

The second door, directly facing the mirror, with another relief, this time of two lions with wings facing an urn.

Our purple windows looking out onto the street!

All in all, it's a pretty great place, there are just some things I wish we could change. The sink is rather gross...nothing unhygienic, but has paint spills and calcium buildup that makes it look rather unkept and dirty. Plus it doesn't get a lot of light, being on street level, but my plants seem to really like it in the kitchen! The bedroom room is the one in the middle, which means people have to walk through it to get to the livingroom, but we've put up some curtains to block off the area, which adds a little something (although the curtains were given to us by Vitalik's mother and are not my favorite thing to look at....you'd be surprised how much curtains cost in France!!!) It's also weird because there's no gas or anything, so no hot water/heating is available, which means that at the moment we're still living in our old apartment, but we've moved all our stuff into the new apartment, so we don't really have a "home." We officially move in on my birthday, meaning Thursday the 10th. It's been pretty hard money-wise, but we're gonna pull through with money to be able to eat this month (which was not the way it was looking a week ago). I guess thats what it is to be an adult though! Work through tough situations, figure shit out, and get stuff done! I'll post more pictures once we're fully moved in and have internet service again!

In other news, I started my internship at a French middle school yesterday. It's probably the school with the worst reputation in the whole city, located in what is essentially the ghetto of Besançon. The majority of the students come from families in difficult situations, who are first generation immigrants, and who just in general don't give a fuck. I'm not going to get into political details in this post because it's just too much, depressing, and I think we all have at least a vague idea of how things work in places like that, but my God. It's completely different from anything I've ever seen before in my life! The kids (from what I've seen in my two days there so far) have no interest whatsoever in learning, and prefer to make jokes and insult each other and the teacher. Even for the children who want to learn and get things done, the troublemakers prevent them from doing so. I thought my teacher was going to explode today from how much she was yelling at her class. It scares me a little about my future, but seeing as how I'm in one of the worst schools in the city, it can only get better from here, right?

Also, the French school system is so very different from the American system, which I expected, but not to this extent. Everything is cut and dry, and there's not really any room for conversation (although that could just be where I am, because if you give them an inch they will take your whole arm. Notes are taken at the end of class, from things written on the board. In the notebook, the date is written in the top lefthand corner of the page in red, the title of the notes (eg. British Food) is written in the center in green ink, and the notes are taken, skipping a line every time, in blue ink. It's really interesting to learn how things work here regarding middle school, and now I understand better why my first French teacher was so adamant about how our notebooks looked for her class! If we made one mistake writing notes, we had to completely re-do them on the next page, which I found ridiculous, because white-out exists for a reason! Also, French teachers are much more likely to get angry, and come right out and tell you that what you're doing is wrong, and that is needs to be changed immediately instead of giving the students a more comforting learning environment, like the US. I don't really like it, but thats the way it is!

Anyway, I'll keep you posted in the next couple of weeks about how the internship is coming along and everything.

Here are some more photos!