Onwards and upwards

I'm not really good with change. I hate leaving things. Whether it is a job, a team, friends, or in this case Montpellier where I have spent the last few months. I am just not good with moving on.  But I guess that is something I am going to have to get used to on this trip since I have to keep on moving to make the most of this nine months. I do have to go back to real life eventually.

I somehow managed to fit it all back in again

It was a sad week of goodbyes here in Montpellier. First off it was goodbye to all my friends who left one by one to head back to their respective home countries or on to further travels.  The good thing was lots of goodbyes necessitated lots of good bye lunches and dinners with yes, you guessed it, more amazing food.

 

Then to my host family. I titled this post onwards and upwards because I am literally going up to northern France but I definitely don't think I could possibly improve on the hospitality that I received in Montpellier. I was incredibly lucky with my host family placement as they were super welcoming and included me in all aspects of their life whether it was family vacations or just everyday outings. We had many good adventures in the last three months, some of which have been chronicled on this blog but countless other everyday laughs over simple things like the interesting technique of an 11 year old boy attempting to vacuum.

I also am saying goodbye to my position as "English Professional," the amusing title one of Mathis' friends gave me. While I may have seemed like that in their mind I certainly did not feel well equipped to teach English despite being a native. If there is one thing I learned in the past few weeks is that English is a hard language to teach/learn. I can certainly see why most programs like this require a TEFL certificate. and I really think they should. Despite having some ESL books and worksheets from my mom's class, I felt so unequipped to teach English. It is one thing to be able to look at a sentence and pick out the errors but it is completely another to actually be able to explain grammar rules - why something is wrong, when you can use certain things etc. Add in the fact that my explanatory powers were further limited by my limited vocabulary and grasp of the french language to make it that much more challenging. But I have actually learned a lot about our language through my nightly googling. So a big thank you to Google for teaching me my own language so that I can teach it to someone else the next day.


You may think I am exaggerating a bit ... so give this pop quiz a try

- conjugate the verb "to go" into the present continuous tense.
- what is the past tense of the verb "can"?
- what are four different meanings to the verb "to get"
- how many past tense conjugations are there for the verb "to be" and what are they?

not so easy huh? unless of course you are a teacher or English major of some sort
(answers at the bottom)

I am also saying au revoir to my french course and formal french learning.  These 3 three fancy certificates to say that I am at at intermediate level of french now. Aka I can get understand most things and convey ideas when needed... but its certainly not eloquent. My brain just can't conjugate/remember the Grammar rules/remember the gender/ put the words in order fast enough to make long sentences flow smoothly.

But a couple of hard goodbyes means I get to say hello to something else and in this case it is hello to Paris! And more importantly hello to my Mom and Grandma who are visiting for 10 days over the holidays. I have already explored a bit of Paris last time I was in Europe but despite spending 5 days in Paris I left feeling like we hadn't even scratched the surface. I am excited to explore more of  Paris at Christmas with a part of the family. I took the train up to Paris this morning and met them at the airport in true chauffeur style - sign and all. Anyone get the TV reference? Its from Seinfeld for everyone who hasn't been made to watch Seinfeld marathons for hours on end.


We trekked our way through the metro and managed to find our rental apartment without problem. However when we went to the grocery store to grab some snacks and food for the week we managed to thoroughly embarrass ourselves. First we couldn't take all the fruit we had chosen because we hadn't weighed it. Who knew you had to weigh your own fruit before going to the counter? Then I managed to drop the bag with our 4 euro bottle of wine (red of course for maximum messiness) and eggs which splattered all over the super market floor. Oops...How do you say clean up in aisle 4 en Francais?. I am sure the checkout person was just cursing all tourists in her head as we left. What a start to what are sure to be some amusing adventures in Paris.

At the Christmas market on the Champs d'Elysses - Hot mulled wine (better in the glass then on the floor)

A little foggy but we found the tower.  

I have been thinking of everyone back home throughout the lead up to Christmas and it has been a little weird to see Christmas dinners, parties etc.  happening from a far thanks to Facebook. Thanks to everyone who invited me to things even knowing I was millions of miles away -its the thought that counts. Sadly I didn't find any good red eye flights and have missed the various Christmas parties and events over the last couple weeks. And of course the annual family skating party :(  But I am sending a great big merry Christmas to all. I hope everyone's Christmas is blessed with quality family time like mine is right now.

I leave home and this is what they do to my poor dog. The indignity! 

Answers:


a. I am going/ you are going etc.
b. could/was able to (changes depending on the usage)
c. to change position (I got up) to achieve something (I got first place) to obtain ownership of something (I got a new dog) to become (I got mad) - there are many more senses of the word.  I never noticed how much we use it and in how many different ways until I had to actively try to avoid using it with Mathis until I taught it to him.
d. 2 = was / were