hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.

huzzah!

so vee's here. and she has been for 3 days. and we've not done much yet but the plans are in motion. sort of.

today i am throwing a lunch for all us assistants as a final goodbye thing. and it's here in my place. i had planned it to be an outdoor lunch in the sun and then we would have headed to the beach to lounge and maybe even swim.

but it's raining today.

so vee and i have cooked and cleared and we'll do it indoors.

the menu is biryani (that resembles sambar satham but it doesn't taste like sambar satham), raita and a guac-salad thing. the food's all pretty much ready. i'm going to add the avocado last minute so that it doesn't turn brown (vee's idea, she's convinced it will even though i've only seen it happen with guac that's a day old at least.)

vee's in charge of the raita and she isn't adding the yogurt until the very last minute cuz she doesn't like there to be too much absorbing. i would like it to be clear that i like absorbing, i like it a lot.

and i stopped with the above sentence because people arrived on time, something i wasn't expecting. and so now, i continue...

it was a lot of fun, there were 12 of us in total and more than enough food to go around. we played charades and ate and ate and ate. everyone loved the biryani. and the raita and the guac. there were delectable mini coconut cupcakes with pink cream cheese frosting and passion fruit frosting made by jules. beccs brought a box of wine cuz we're classy like that, there was pink schwepps, iced tea and my mint lemonade. colleen made an awesome chick pea salad that was spicy and really complemented the dishes we made. there were cookies and carrot sticks and bread (of course). and we ate and ate some more.

then people trickled out and vee and i got down to cleaning up.

and these are short, nondescript sentences cuz i'm sleepy. and my hands are dry from all the dish washing.

craving: a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice
currently listening to: hummm of the computer, my typing and vee's loud sleep-breathing

woaaaaaaah, everyone was wearing fingerless gloves!

my lower right eyelid is twitching.

i have officially begun to get darker. the weather is fabulous. like summer. the sun sets at 8:30. like summer. and i am rarely hungry. like summer. and i'm lazy and sleepy from the heat. like summer.

went to sete on saturday for one of the american assistant's birday thing. it was a hot hot day. and i did a very stupid thing in the morning. i was supposed to get to the train station by 11:20 to catch the train everyone else was catching. and i mixed up the bus schedule and waited over 30 minutes for a bus that wasn't coming. then i went home and had some leftover pasta salad cuz i was angry and hungry and then went out to catch the real bus. sete was fun fun fun fun. we went to lunch and i had a salade aux noix et roquefort a walnut and roquefort salad that had waay too much vinegar on it. everyone else had seafood of course, things with eyes and without eyes, slimy things and shelled things. i always think that if i ate shellfish, i would have to eat a lot cuz after all that work, it looks like a very small bite.

then we went to the beach and laid out in the sun for a looong time. the girls went into the water but i didn't have a swimsuit so i couldn't. plus it was freeeezing. i read some more of austen's persuasion. a book that's taking an annoyingly long time for me to finish. then we headed back to beziers and had pasta carbonera at colleen's place, she made a separate non bacon version for me and the other non-pig-eaters. and we had an interesting rum punch to go with it.

and today i did a lot of laundry and lounged around. i went for a really late run, at 7:30 and it was lovely. then i did my yoga, made and ate another creative salad (today's recipe courtesy of sid): roasted with thyme and olive oil- potatoes, onions, sugar snap peas, and beets. raw tomatoes and roasted red pepper. all mixed with some salt, pepper and parsley. simple but good flavors. i had dessert first- fresh cantaloupe from the market and a grapefruit. eaten separately of course. i seem to crave citrus after a workout so every day, after my run, i eat a grapefruit. and i also ate the last bit of chocolate in my house- a raspberry filled ghiradelli dark chocolate square that my mommy sent a long time ago.

and now i'm sleeepy cuz i had a hot shower.

craving: a jamba juice for breakfast tomorrow
currently listening to: boombox- the lonely island featuring julian casablancas

i got this, you got this, my friend is on my right, aaaay

i'm being lazy and not working out today. which is vair bad and i feel guilty. but it's late. and i had a snack which messed up my groove. enough with the excuses...

the kids were all crazy today. every single one of the 5 classes i had. my 9am class we just plain noisy and i had to tell them to be quiet constantly. i had a lot of energy in the morning (i blame 2, yes 2 chocolate croissants) but they managed to wear me out. and we were working on time and when i drew a clock with 6:35 on it, they wrote "seven to six" and when i told them it was wrong, switched it to "six to seven." and it took me a while to explain the mistake at which several of them smacked their palms to their foreheads and i was glad that they understood the silliness of their mistake. it got better after that but still crazy noisy.

then i came home for lunch and skyped with vee for a nice long time in the sun. i had lunch outside too and skyped and ate and soaked up the sun with the lizards. i had a salad: chick peas, onion, green pepper, tomato, avocado seasoned with salt, pepper, coriander, and olive oil. and i also made some mint lemonade (lime mint cooler) by blending some mint into lemonade and adding a touch of salt for some madras style! i also had a nonfat cherry yogurt which is my least favorite kind of yogurt. i pretty much don't like cherry flavored anything.

headed back to school and my next group of 11 year olds were crazy hyper. they had to learn numbers, time and daily activities for a test the next day but i barely managed to discuss time. thankfully these guys were better at it than the earlier group but there were individuals who would get up to the board to answer a question and then just stand there and say "je ne sais pas, je ne trouve pas" and leave it at that. which i didn't understand. what's the harm in writing something down? if it's wrong i help you correct it and you learn from the mistake. i was trying to be kind and encouraging to the kid at the board while telling the rest of the class to please shut up so i could hear myself think. but they weren't interested in that. there was too much jacket stealing and shoving going on for them to be bothered about how to say 7:45 in the 'traditional sense.' (fifteen minutes to seven)

for my next 2 classes, i thought i had planned an awesome activity: i was going to show them the friday video and tell them the story behind the video and i was sure they would want to discuss. these were the 13 year olds, supposedly the best english class in the school. they had just been to amsterdam on a trip where they had to speak in english so i thought at least they would now see the importance of learning the language. but no. the first group loudly voiced their dislike for the song, in french. they told me that rebecca black has no talent and shouldn't pursue a career in music. but when i asked them the difference between her and justin beiber, all hell broke loose. the girls started arguing with the boys and they was a lot of yelling in french.

the second group was better. they participated more and told me that maybe if the song's lyrics were better she wouldn't have been so hated. or if her voice wasn't so nasal. when i played the song for the first time some of them even nodded their heads along to the beat or joined in at the "fun, fun, fun, fun" and "friday, friday..." bits. they also told me that they would never make a video like that just to become famous, or known. so different from american kids haha. i had such a difficult time getting them to voice their opinions in english though, it was strange. they didn't seem to bother trying, they talked to each other about the song but nobody wanted to try and give me a few sentences in english. so most of the class was spent with me asking them yes or no questions in english and them replying only yes or no and then adding more in french. the second group also thought it would be hilarious to throw tiny bits of eraser at one another and they did so and laughed like loons. sigh.

so then i came home pooped. and peckish. so i snacked and i shouldn't have. i had a whole bunch of strawberries that the sweet man at the market gave me for free cuz i teach his twin girls every other week. and i had some yummy grainy bread with fig jam and bits of comte on top. and more strawberries. and i was still peckish so i grabbed a reeses peanut butter cup. and i don't even like them. i took a bite and immediately regretted it but to not waste it, i but it in the blender, added a bit of milk and made an odd milkshake. it tasted ok, like peanut butter milk. better than the chocolate at any rate. and so all this snacking led to me skyping with vee and it becoming too late to run.

so here i sit at 8:36pm no running, no yoga, too much food, and thoroughly annoyed with rebecca black since i had to play her song 4 times in school.

craving: more daylight so i can go work out and justify the reeses.
currently listening to: 7 guesses which song is stuck in my head.