Day 9, 10, 11 and 12: Two first days and two Germans

On Friday, I had my first day at Collège Corot. I will be working there 4 hours per week for the next six months, and the students at Collège are around 13-15 years old. I arrived a bit early, so I ordered a croissant at a bakery. The saleswoman somehow understood 'three', and because I was too unsure to cancel it, my lunch was then quickly clear: Two butter croissants! #healthylifestyle Besides that, I had a very nice first day and was warmly welcomed by Héloise and Anne-Lou, the two German teachers. They are very different teachers, as Anne-Lou is currently in her probationary period and Héloise is one of her supervising teachers. In teacher training in France, you mainly study the subject and as far as I know, you don't have any didactic instruction and very few internships. Therefore, the probationary period is really a plunge into the deep end, and you have to gain a lot of new experiences and try out new things. I am very excited about this different collaboration! The school is very well equipped, with a whiteboard in each classroom, which both teachers have used very logically in their lessons. I'm really looking forward to gaining experience in teaching with digital media (at least more than an overhead projector).

After school, I watched a few series and drank tea to warm up in the constant rain that is still going on. When I went shopping in the evening, I caught the only hour without rain and was able to capture the St. Martin canal with a beautiful evening sky.

On Saturday, I met up with Lea, the girl from the email distribution list. We were in the Jewish quarter, ate small meringue cakes, drank beer (okay, only me), and had pizza in the evening. The restaurant recommendation came from Vio, who sent me 10 lists of various recommendations coincidentally on the same day, of which I will definitely use one or two, thanks Vio! I got along very well with Lea, it was very cool to have someone to chat with.

Sunday morning, I had a soft-boiled egg and bread/baguette for breakfast and FaceTimed with my parents, as has already become routine during the pandemic. After that, I went for a coffee with Florence, the mother of the flat, at the 'institut suédois', the Swedish institute. It is located very close to the Picasso Museum and in a very beautiful and quiet courtyard. We cycled there and therefore arrived very quickly. Cycling in Paris was much less stressful than expected, but maybe because I could just follow someone who knows the city very well. After I prepared and took care of a few things in the afternoon, I met up with Mathis, a friend of Nils. He is also German and comes from Merzig! We had Vietnamese food and then went to a really cozy pub, where I could imagine going more often. Apparently, there is sometimes live music in the basement, so that sounds good!

Today, on Monday, I had my first day at the Lycée, the school where I will be working 8 hours per week. Today, I already met Anja and Julia, from Austria and Germany, who I will be working with. Both are very nice and also really passionate about music! Anja immediately told me about her house in Normandy, where I can spend a weekend vacation if I want, and there is also a piano there, and Julia sings a lot and enjoys it, and her husband is a singer at the opera here in Paris. That already created a very positive atmosphere from the very beginning! In addition, both classes that I met were really nice. Furthermore, both have a very high level of German because they are either in the Euro class or even doing AbiBac, which is a combination of the German Abitur and the French Baccalauréat. From next week, I will already be working alone with half of each class and I'm really excited to see how that goes! I also received my schedule: Monday and Thursday off, Tuesday (all day), Wednesday (morning), and Friday (all day) at the schools. I was very happy to have two days off. That leaves me a lot of time for preparation, but also for other things like hobbies or continuing to teach my recorder students from home via video call. Today, I spent the afternoon (of course in the rain) in a café right on my street with delicious hot cocoa and a book. That was nice.

In the coming weeks, I will have a lot of time, as a higher level of security regarding the pandemic has been introduced in Paris at least for the next two weeks, and all bars will be closed. Also, all dance schools and swimming pools have to close, which is quite annoying because I wanted to find a dance group this week to make new contacts. It's already difficult with orchestral and choral music, so I thought that through dancing, I would at least meet some French girls. But that will have to wait!

My two café meet-ups on the weekend were really cool, but both were in German, and now I'm a bit worried that my French is not getting enough practice. At least with Florence, I speak a lot of French, and I'm very glad about that. This evening, we sat together in the kitchen with champagne (!) and just talked a bit.