Another long day of observing in the classroom… Today I spent time with a class of 7-8 year olds who, I’ve discovered, have enormous amounts of energy and a great difficulty with sitting down for more than 30 seconds at a time. The poor teacher—she was constantly asking someone to go sit down, someone else to stop talking, someone else to pay attention, etc. It was exhausting to ME, and I wasn’t even trying to teach! She did a good job of keeping calm and getting things done (slowly). Something I’ve noticed is that one of the more important things they teach here is handwriting. They take special care that all the students are forming their letters correctly (here they start with cursive and move to printing in middle school) and are writing clearly. Each time they write in their notebooks, they are expected to write very carefully and neatly. I don’t remember elementary school being like that in the US…
I snuck out at 3:00pm instead of leaving at 4:30pm because I was so so bored. I won’t even be helping out in the class I was observing today! Since I had some papers I needed to read before my orientation (which is tomorrow in Dax, a different town), I figured it would be fine to head home.
Since we don’t have internet (and the papers I needed to read were online), I ended up sitting at the neighbors’ house! They said it was totally fine for me to use their internet and they have a nice outside table where I can sit. I even managed to have a 2-minute skype chat with Maria (which was slightly awkward whenever the neighbors came outside because I didn’t want them to think I was chatting amiably with my laptop…) before she had to go to work.
After tea with my host family, I decided to go on a bike adventure! I had no idea where I was headed, but I figured it didn’t really matter. It’s actually pretty scary to bike around here because the streets are narrow and people drive really fast. And there is definitely no bike lane. I just kept trying to choose the less-traveled street until I eventually ended up in the woods. I found a nice path and headed into the woods—it was beautiful!! Not only were the trees lovely, the lighting was perfect as it was around 5:30pm and the sun was making everything look gold. I kept taking random paths and, after about an hour and a half, I managed to find my way home. Now that I know where the nice paths are, I will definitely go back (even by foot would be great). And, should anyone care to visit me, I have a great place to show off!
When I returned home, Margot wanted to play speed. So, we played a few games, then ended up watching random videos on my computer (funny ones I took at home). We just hung out until it was time for dinner (omelette/salad/bread/pears).
After dinner, I had a skype date with Maria. Soo, since we don’t have internet… AND I really didn’t want to sit on the neighbors’ patio while talking to an inanimate object…I chose to sit out in the dark, on the sidewalk in front of their house. Hmm, that’s not sketchy… I ended up skyping with Jessie first, but after about 10 minutes, my host father came out to see if it was working. When he found me sitting on the sidewalk, he very kindly moved his car so I could sit inside of it, where I was much more comfortable (and a little less sketchy).
It was really nice to get to finally talk with people from home! Although I am managing to stay happy (more or less), I do get homesick. It has been hard without internet because I haven’t gotten to speak with any family or friends in a week. That probably seems like not a big deal, but I already feel better tonight than I have in a while. Perhaps it will all get easier soon…
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