i could dream of ways to see you, i could close my eyes to dream

so the fates have declared this to be yet another weekend spent in serignan and bored out of my mind.

tuesday night: i went out to dinner with some teachers to a giant buffet restaurant. it was only slightly awkward. they were all really nice to me. i spent a while before at home, trying to decide whether to go or not because i had googled the restaurant and discovered that it is quite expensive. 23 euro per person. and mariana, the spanish assistant fell sick and wasn't coming. but i went for it since i have so little to do around here. the conversation revolved around teaching but it was mostly over my head. not that i didn't understand, i just had no way of contributing. they also talked about traveling in france and other outings they were organising. the food was amazing. especially dessert. i really have never seen such a large dessert spread in all my life. and it was categorized according to ingredient. the ice cream really blew my mind: caramel beurre sale. yumm. it's caramel ice cream with salty butter. i cannot get enough of it. and ooh what the french can do with chocolate. almost makes me wonder why they bother with frogs' legs, snails and whatever goes into tripe. aziza, my favorite teacher refused to let me pay even though i never said anything all night about the cost or anything. she said it was her treat. god bless her. she keeps saying that she's so grateful to have the chance to pass it along and help an assistant because of the incredible experience she had when she was one in liverpool.

wednesday: i went in for a class i see only twice a month. they're a group of students who take extra english and so they are slightly better than all my others. i spent the 2 hours with annie, their teacher, observing. they spent an hour asking questions about stokholm. at the end of the year they will be taking a 5 day trip to sweden to work on their english. they were quite excited about it and wanted to know all the details immediately. annie forced them to ask any and all questions in english and even though they struggled, (approx. 5 minutes to frame each question) they managed to express themselves really well in english. some of their questions were so strange though and made me wonder if they paid any attention in geography... or life. a few students thought it took all day to fly to sweden. the whole class wanted to know if they used the same electricity outlets as france. and a lot of girls wanted to know if the ABBA albums they wanted to buy would be in english.

the majority of the class was spent whining over the choice of stockholm. everyone wanted to go to london to practice english and couldn't understand why they were headed to a country where english wasn't the national language. i think it is a very cool idea. none of these students speak swedish, and i'm assuming that the odds of meeting swedes who speak french will be low, so the language everyone will be forced to use is english. i think these kids are incredibly lucky and i really wish i could go. i'm not going but not for lack of trying. there is a set number of adults required and i do not count. even though my english is awesome. boo.

thursday was pretty boring. the students were noisy and hilarious and i managed to teach very little. i tried showing a group of 13-14 year olds video clips of the pilot of the tv show lost to discuss what they saw. it worked a little. they earnestly attempted to speak in english and give me words and sentences about what they saw, but they mostly bickered about rubber band bracelets and who was farting and discussed the show in french. it is as if they all have attention disorders. or they're just not into it.

friday was so boring i made myself a chocolate cake. and i iced it too. i'm trying to figure out how to make a moist cake and this recipe called for mayonnaise instead of oil or butter. and i have mayo i'm not using so it was perfect. except that it came out dry as usual. it's very yummy but i want it moist!!

and saturday: i didn't do anything all day. except read, watch tv online, eat, and take a shower. and sing. i seem to do a lot of that these days. i really hope gladys and jean pierre can't hear me. and tomorrow's sunday. i am desperate for some pasta with a roquefort cream sauce and spinach and mushrooms but nothing's open sundays so i have to wait until monday to get the ingredients for that.

craving: lunch at cascade with vee and the twins
currently listening to: the quiet- my typing, random intestinal sounds, and natalya's soft humming