In Krakow

I have almost made it to my final destination. Currently I am in Krakow with Uncle Jim. Wednesday he leaves early to fly home via London and I'll take a train up to Warsaw. I'll be back in France Saturday night and back to work on Monday!

Vacation time

I leave in two hours for Milan, via the most obscure train station in Paris. Did you know it takes less time to fly to Milan from Ohio via London than it does to get from Montlucon to Milan?

Must run over to Carrefour to get a lock so I can leave my bag alone on the overnight train when I need to use the bathroom. I'll be back in March!

Not Valentine's Day - Halfway Day

Today marks the halfway point of my time in France: Four and a half months behind me and I still have four and a half months before my contract is done.

I only celebrated Valentine's Day with one class. My Monday CM2 kids are just so cooperative and fun to teach that I couldn't resist having a small celebration with them. My parents had sent me conversation hearts and I thought the English messages on them would be a perfect tie-in. After going through a normal lesson on food (and conjugating the verb "to eat") we learned "Do you like (onions/carrots/fish/etc)?" "Yes, I like (xxx)," "No, I don't like (xxx)." Of course then I asked them, "Do you like candy?" and distributed the candy.

I don't think French kids eat many sweets because they always get excited when I bring even small pieces of candy to class, and these kids were no exception. They acted like the hearts were a delicacy (though coming all the way from the U.S. might make them so...) and wanted to know if they were expensive.

They were also fascinated by the little messages, and we dug through the bag so everyone could have a heart saying "LOVE YOU." I gave rough translations of the other messages. One boy threw his heart away when I explained what "kiss me" meant!

Week six

M - 8 miles
T - 7 morning / 4.5 evening
W - 7 (8 x 500m workout)
R - 10
F - 4
S - 6
S - 8.5 (6.4k xc race in 26:21)

Total: 55
Year to date: 296 miles

After speaking with my coach this evening I've found I have two more races on the calendar. Five weeks before the Marathon de Lyon, I'll race a 10k in Vichy. Two weeks after that I'll go for a half marathon PR in Riom.

Semi-championnat de France

Yesterday I raced in the Semi-Championnat de France for cross country in Mably, near Roanne. They had changed the distance of all of the races that day so my race was actually 6.423k. The apparent precision of yesterday's races makes me question the accuracy of the other cross country distances I've run here, but that's beside the point.

After hanging out and watching some of the other races to try to orient myself as to exactly how the loops would be traversed I did a nice long slow warmup. It was pretty cold (about 35*) but I felt nice and loose after a mile or two.

The starting line was away from the rest of the course which was generally one huge loop (grande boucle) that could be shortened to make a medium sized loop (moyenne boucle) and a short loop (petite boucle). My race was one petite boucle followed by two grande boucles and then the finishing stretch.

This was easily the biggest race I've run in France. I had no idea where to place myself on the line, so I stepped in behind Stephanie, but as we waited for it to be exactly 2:15 I lost a lot of my personal space. The first 50m or so of the course was a mud pit so I was nervous about falling down (again). Although I was passed by nearly everyone as the gun went off (French women start races fast!) I fortunately did managed to stay on my feet.

In the other races I've run, the field has immediately strung out so within 1k or so I've been alone. This time it was strange to have other women directly in front of me, behind me, and others' elbows nearly hitting my sides. It was definitely a hindrance as the course narrowed and we took a couple of sharp (muddy) turns on the PB, but as the race progressed and the course was less sloppy, I really appreciated having others to push me.

Other than the patchy mud in one place on the GB, the rest of the course was fairly dry flat dirt. There were three short but sudden hills that we traversed three times, but they wre minor and the course as a whole awas pretty fast. I kept passing women through the race, and in the last 200m I actually dug up a finishing kick and passed several more before the finish line.

I finished 58th out of 151 women. I was just 10 places (15 seconds) out of qualifying for the national meet, which sounds close, but I was not really anywhere close. Stephanie finished 3rd with Cecile in 26th and Martine in 34th; they all easily qualified.

The photos I'm inserting were taken by Meredith, who managed to see me several times to cheer for me loudly in English. I'm really lucky to have him as a roommmate. He ran in the men's short course (3.78k) finishing in 12:57, which is a huge time improvement from his last races. The best part aside from his huge improvement was that he forgot his uniform at home and had to wear mine!

Tomorrow's race

Tomorrow I am running in the Semi-finale du Championnat de France for cross country. I am entered in the senior women's long course, which is 7.046k this time. The race is in Mably, sort of between Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon. All of the qualifiers from the Championnat d'Auvergne will race, as well as qualifiers from the championship of the Rhone-Alps region.

This will be my last cross country race of the season unless miraculously manage to qualilfy to the national xc championship. Based on last year's results, however, I am going to get my butt kicked by the women of the Rhone-Alps!

Wednesday night Cecile and I did what may be one of our last track workouts together, as I'll start focusing more on the marathon and she'll be racing middle distance. The original workout was 10 x 500m with 90 sec rest, but after we'd done three intervals, Christian decided 10 would be too much with the cold and rain and cut it down to 8.

My goal time was 1:52, and after a sloppy and slow first attempt (1:56, ouch) I stayed between 1:50 and 1:52 for the rest. I love doing track work with Cecile because she is very steady and consistent and doesn't mind me keying off her tempo. She led me through the last 500 a little quicker (1:48), though, and afterward announced happily, "I could do two more!" I hushed her so Christian wouldn't hear and said, "I could use a hot shower." So this makes another way I can tell my French is improving: I can now good-naturedly complain about track work.

La blonde

One interesting difference between living in Spain (as I did two years ago) and living in France now if my ability to blend in. Except perhaps in the biggest cities, I clearly stick out as a foreigner in Spain. The blond hair is a dead giveaway. In France, however, as long as I keep my mouth shut and resist the temptation to wear my comfy running shoes I can pass as French. Several times after getting into conversations with hotel clerks or museum workers or strangers on the street, I've been interrupted by a surprised, "You're not French!" Sometimes the phrasing is such that I can't tell if the person is making a statement or asking a question, and I usually respond as if it were a question ("No, I'm not. I'm American.") though I've been tempted to insist on my 'Frenchness' just to see if I can get away with it.

Today (after calling my dad before 8 am on his time...) I finally bought my return ticket to France for after this upcoming vacation. After my uncle Jim leaves from Krakow on March 1st, I'm going up to Warsaw for a few days before flying back to Paris on the 4th. The best ticket (by 'best' I mean available and cheap) was on Wizzair, a new budget airline based in Eastern Europe. Either because it is very new or because it generally only serves European customers, when I was directed to select my country from a pull-down menu the United States was not an option!

Meredith's car

Yummy dessert

...but click on the photo to enlarge it and check out the name of the second product.

The Carp Forum, an annual event

Coke light

On Fridays I rotate two classes with a French English teacher. That is to say, Emilie is a French woman who speaks nearly flawless English. We divide a full CM2 class and each teach half and then switch kids. She plans the lessons, so all I have to do is show up, which is really a nice treat on Fridays.

The story here is last Friday's lesson on synonyms and antonyms. Emilie had me distribute a crossword puzzle with clues (and answers) such as "opposite of big" (small), "opposite of ugly" (beautiful). Unfortunately, the worksheet was well above their current level of English so we had to do the crossword puzzle as a group. We started with the words they were acquainted with (big) and moved onto harder ones, giving the definition for the clue word and then thinking of the asnwer before using both in a sentence.

I had saved "opposite of light" (heavy) for one of the last, thinking they wouldn't know the word at all. I was surprised when nearly all the kids' hands shot up to define "light." The consensus: "Sans sucre (Without sugar)!!!"

Week five

M - 9 miles
T - 9
W - 0
R - 0
F - 0
S - 0
S - 8

Total:26
Year to date: 241 miles

Ii really hate the way all those zeros look. On Tuesday near the end of my run, I experienced a sharp pain in the top of my right foot that reduced me to walking home. Later, it swelled up slightly and turned into a bruise. I had Meredith poke at it, and then Wednesday I stopped by practice to talk to Christian about it. One of the other runners is a kinesiologue so he looked at it, also. Neither of them thought it was a stress fracture (that was my first fear, except for the suddenness of the pain) but Joel gave me some analgesic cream and we decided it was best to rest it awhile. By Sunday, the bruise had faded and the area wasn't even sore if I poked at it, so I went out on a test run with Meredith and it felt fine!

Ramblings

Recent lessons

I've started to teach the alphabet to a few of my classes in the past few days. This is a very boring topic; what can you do but repeat the letters over and over and eventually make the kids practice spelling things? I did manage to add a little more interest to the lesson, however, with colors and Bingo. After introducing the English pronounciation of all the letters, I organized them into the following color-coded groups:

Q U W (blue)
A H J K (gray)
B C D E G P T V Z (green)
F L M N S X (red)
I Y (white)
O (yellow)
R (purple)

Get it? The vowel sound of the color corresponds to the vowel sound in each letter group. (The 'R' is imperfect, but it's as close as it gets.) French kids have special difficulty distinguishing 'A' from 'I,' remembering how to say 'Y,' and mixing up 'G' and 'J' because they are pronounced the opposite way in French. After sorting the letters into groups, I distributed a 5 x 5 Bingo card of letters, but before playing the game, the students colored in the squares. They know the color names fairly well, so I'm hopeful the coding system will help them remember the letters, and playing Bingo is always a good activity.

In one class yesterday, I was asked to translate part of the new Madonna song ("Time goes by so slowly...") and then a different boy wanted me to tell what the phrase "pump it up" meant. I took this very seriously, and explained that "pump" could mean three different things. First of all, that phrase probably refers to raising the energy level of, say a sports team. Second, it can refer to weight lifting. Third and finally, it can simply mean inflate, such as in the case of tires. I think they enjoyed this more than the real lesson I had presented.

Foreign food

I've been buying dehydrated soup mixes at the grocery store because they are easy and quick to prepare. Yesterday Meredith and I had Moroccan chorba which had bits of lamb and was slightly spicy. Today we made a mix that I had picked up in Budapest with some of my extra forint, gulyasleves, which was also really good.

I had made a trip down the foreign foods aisle at the supermarket last week to pick up supplies for our fajita night and I'd come across a box of pancake mix. After sleeping in on Wednesday, we started the day with 'American' pancakes. For lack of maple syrup (not even imitation!) we used honey and raspberry jam. The box the mix came in explains that there are the same number of states as stars on the flag, and features a drawing of the Statue of Liberty.

My birthday

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! My students were very excited to wish me a happy birthday, and one class sung to me. I received a few drawings and cards from them. One little girl decorated hers with real lipstick kisses.

My assistant friends gave me a card and we went out for drinks and dancing. Other than Meredith, their contracts finish at the end of April, so we've been trying to plan fun weekends before then, and reunions after they leave.

And now

This morning I ate leftover chocolate cake for breakfast before rushing off to teach a class I had rescheduled. Meredith and I are taking off for Grenoble for the weekend (his birthday was Monday!) so I should be getting going to pack and clean up now. Have a great weekend!

Happy Groundhog Day!

I think I have received a record number of emails commemorating today's holiday.

Happy birthday, Uncle Jim!

I have two weeks of vacation at the end of February and my Uncle Jim is coming to travel with me. Two years ago at the end of my study abroad program in Spain we went to London, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Berlin and had a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to this trip.

We're meeting in Milan, Italy, where I'll arrive obscenely early on an overnight train from Paris. The only other certain plan we have right now is a visit to Krakow, Poland, where Uncle Jim will leave to fly home.

In between the two, my rough idea is to visit two out of three of these cities: Venice, Italy; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Zagreb, Croatia. After that, we'll take a train north to Bratislava before winding up in Krakow. I have had no luck in finding any trains to Bratislava from any of those three previously named cities, so there will probably be an intermediate stop in there.

Then after Uncle Jim leaves, I have four or five days before I have to be back in Montlucon. I have no ideas yet what I'll do with that time, and my only stipulation is that I finish my trip in a city that has cheap flights back to Paris or some other French city. Any suggestions?