Man Junk.

Now that I have your attention...

Today was the beginning of "le stage" here for the assistants. This is a week-long orientation for the 1700 of us all over the country and we come from the States, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, etc. There are other language assistants here (France is into multilingualism, I guess... or the teachers just want a break...) and the ones I've met come from: Germany, El Salvador, and Italy. Here's hoping to basically re-create the film "L'Auberge Espagnole" with the languages and without the heartbreak and all of that.

What did "le stage" mean for me today?
Well, all of us were sent to our "circonscriptions" to talk to our CP (conseillere pedagogique) about our placement in schools, their expectations for us, stuff like that. We were told our salaries, how to call in sick (we have to have a doctor's note), we were told that we will not get reimbursed for traveling (it's 2.90 E for one trip to Sorgues!), and we were told to be strict with our little kids so things don't get out of hands. We were also told, as the icing on our teaching cakes that "No offense, but you're basically here to replace the tape recorders."

Ah, tact.

Yup, Sylvia Brignatz, the CP of Sorgues and some surrounding towns informed us that, as assistants, we are there to assist and not to be the teacher but to basically just be there for pronunciation. Sweet. I get paid 780 E a month to work two days a week in front of a few classes to help they say "Hello my name is?" Sounds pretty ideal. But it was also quite a shock since we've all been (ok well, I haven't really but I'm starting to now) researching how to teach like mad.

Also, I went to la circonscription a Sorgues with none of my papers (like the cool person that I am) because no one (no one in l'academie, no one from Sorgues, no one from the French embassy, no on in Avignon... no. one.) told us what to expect from this week. So I show up emptyhanded (like an idiot) and I'm told tha tI'm supposed to have photocopies of all my documents to give to my CP. I do have them ("je les ai") but just at my house ("mes papiers sont chez moi"). So that was no good. Luckily I go to watch Celine hand in all her stuff and tomorrow I get to give my papers to the person at the Inspection Academique. Phew!

The rest of "le stage" will continue this week. The little we did know about this week came in an e-mail to us last Friday that gave us very brief outlines of our days. By brief I mean it said the day, the time, and the address where we're supposed to be every day. Sometimes there was a detail like "go to a cafe to go over your documents" or "we'll go have a tour at Palais des Papes." But really, information from the program to the assistants is limited and there's a lot of guesswork going on. ANYway, the main point of this is that they did give us one cool detail/thing to do: we were to head to Marseille (the second biggest city in all of France) in order to meet up with the rest of the assistants in Aix-Marseille (our educational academy) for some training/info sessions. Sounds cool, right? I mean, I heard that Marseille is supposed to be the Brooklyn of France so I'm all ready to go! However, this morning, Sylvie points to that part of our schedule and just says "You know how you're supposed to go to Marseille on Wednesday? No, that's not going to happen. I don't know who decided this or why, but now you're just going on Thursday." What? This is a big bummer because, as one assistant put it, going to Marseille (original plan: go Wednesday morning, sped the night, return on the later TGV on Thursday night) was going to be the highlight of the week. But now? Non. We go for a morning adn afternoon. How much does it cost, roundtrip, to go to Marseille? Um... at least thirty-five euros. That's over fifty bucks for one morning/afternoon in a freaking cool city in France, we have no lodging, and we will not get reimbursed for our trip. Thank you, French Embassy!

The rest of the morning went swimmingly, as Sylvie spoke in slow enough French so that I could understand. Unfortunately, I kept my mouth shut and didn't really say much of everything because I was taking it all in and because Celine and the other assistant, Vidya, were doing the talking. Celine? She's this amazing girl from Florida who's 25, has taught French to middle-schoolers for the past two years, has done amazing outdoor adventures, she's French and American, fluent in French, she's done the assistantship before, and she's freakishly cool. I get to hang out with her. I get to take the bus to and from Sorgues with her! Who's Vidya? K, I don't know her but I do know this: She's Indian, this is her fourth year doing the assistantship, she's getting her Master's at l'Universite d'Avignon in postcolonial Indian literature, she's married to an assistant she met a few years ago ('love will make you do crazy things') and they both now teach in the Avignon area, she got married in India in May and in France in June and she's taught at Celine's schools but not mine. Oh yeah - apparently my schools are the 'trouble schools' so I have a lot to look forward to there. Donc, j'ai compris tout mais je ne parlais rien. Oh well, next time!

And now... here's what you've all been waiting for...

...

MAN JUNK!

Yes, my friends, yes.
Celine and I were walking post-CP meeting through the streets of Sorgues to our local pizza place (yep, we have a local pizza place called Cat's Pizza which is run by a guy with some crazy sideburns) and she looked up for a second and stopped in her tracks. There, on the roof of Sorgues's 'poissonerie' was a man, somewhere between 65 and 75 years old, standing outside completely naked and holding his junk. Yeah, I said it. It was like I was in a French episode of "Friends" and Ugly Naked Man decided to sunbathe. Oh yeah - he was definitely tanning as he stood outside for about two minutes, overlooking the local traffic and covering his naughty bits, then he turned around, facing his house, with is rear facing us. Beautiful local scenery, non?

So I must leave you all on that note. I'd just like to give a shout out about the stirfry dinner me 'n my friends made tonight - freaking delish and we jammed to Celine Dion's French songs all night long. Please remind me later to update on the "Melting Potes" meeting tonight at "O'Neill's Irish Pub" because it was awesome and it was another reminder of why I am here in France.