Le Stage part Trois: Marseille

So the assistants all went to Marseille.

Now when we all went to Marseille is another story. You know how they gave us all individualized horaires of our week? It turns out that they decided to switch them up on us at the last minute because they're cool* like that. I was supposed to go to Marseille on Wednesday, stay the night, and have Thursday there, but they told me on Monday "whoops, we don't have the reservations with the hotel so you're not going to go." On a scale of one to awesome it was so NOT. It was basically just the primary school teachers from Avignon that they prevented from going and, essentially, kept us from the coolest part of all of orientation. Rarr.

Anyway, so some of us left on Tuesday, others on Wednesday, and I was (re)scheduled to go on Thursday. However, I had free time on Wednesday night and my friends had accommodation at Etap Hotel so I decided to go, although with Ashley from Apt, to Marseille and crash on someone's floor. Glad I did this because I had a great time! I was able to crash on my friends' floor AND crash the dinner they hosted for the assistants so I felt pretty good about it. Yup, there was a dinner provided for the assistants at a nice restaurant in Marseille which I attended without invitation. But that was ok because when we got there, they told us they were expecting many more people. That is because originally there were going to be many more people there but then they cancelled on us. But of course the French educational people didn't tell the restaurant that. What the crud. So I had awesome salmon ravioli and bread and I cling-clinged** my wine glass with assistants from all over the world. The one upside to the incompetence of the French was that there was an abundance of wine due to the drop in attendance.

After dinner and wine we headed to a bar by our hotel and we spent the evening chilling and talking in all different languages and I'm still so shocked and bewildered and pleased to listen to everyone communicate. Good times.

I awoke on Thursday morning to the image of Chloe, my roommate in Marseille, getting dressed and ready to go out at 6:45 am. "Chloe, praytell, what are you doing?" I asked. Turns out she was going to hike up to the Notre Dame de la Garde with Elicia and a Canadian who was studying in Finland. Sounded cool to me so I tagged along.

We took a 20 minute hike wayyyyyyyyyyy uphill to the top of this beautiful Catholic Church. We looked out onto Marseille. It was amazing. Really breathtaking. Really really awesome and exhausting.

The whole point of all of the assistants (finally) being in Marseille on Thursday was to have a giant day of orientation where we were to meet the heads of the French educational system in the Aix-Marseille academy (France's educational system is split into a bunch of regional academies). Of course they didn't really give us all the names properly so I can't remember who I saw speak but I know they were all dreadfully boring and very silly. Especially Monique Lheman, the woman with whom many assistants have had contact the woman who makes most of our lives living hells while we're here. No love for her, for real.

During the talks on Thursday morning, the very important people sat all 270 of us down to tell us how amazing we are. "Vous etes les fenetres au monde!" they kept telling us. I think they told us that we are the doors and windows to the world approximately 20 times. Not a single speaker was charismatic, most were cheesy, and they bored us to tears. There were some awkward moments during the lectures, too, like when Monique Lheman singled out a few assistants. Who'd she single out? The two Chinese assistants. As Celine says, it was like she'd never seen a Chinese person before. Wtf. And she singled out a guy named Scott who plays rugby. She made all of them speak, without warning, in front of all of us. If she'd asked me to do that, I would have punched her in her ovaries, prob. I can't imagine anything more terrifying! I spent most of the morning looking like this.

After our two hour speech we had lunch and then there was another section of orientation in the afternoon at the parliament building of Marseille. What was this part of the orientation about? Um. It was the exact same thing as the first part of Thursday. The exact. same. thing. Monique Lheman spoke, she singled out the Chinese guys and Scott again (although Scott was really smart and had dipped out) and she did all this because she was trying to impress the head of the education whatchamacallit. Literally, she was using us to make her look good. Oh good lord, there was so much brown-nosing on Thursday I really wanted to barf. Grrrrr Monique Lheman you took hours of my life! I want a refund!

So that was the end of orientation in Marseille. For the rest of Thursday, me and a few other assistants took a big hike up so we could have a nice view of Marseille and the Mediterranean. We chilled and it was awesome. After a long day of frustration, we took the TER home to Avignon, food, and relaxation.

Orientation = not fun.

Soon to come:
Friday: Palais des Papes, French educational system's incompetance, and a party at Katie's!







*nope
**cheers-ed
*** She threatened to deport one assistant because one of her folders was missing a document when she had been told months earlier that she'd turned it in perfectly. Awesome