le week end

working as a teacher (even just 12 hours a week) has made me so anxious for the weekend. not that my work is hard by any means. as an assistant i only ever rarely have a whole class to myself and when i do they are usually so pumped that their teacher isnt there that they are pretty easy to deal with. although i had a class this week of 37 eleven year olds that spoke almost no english and were not interested in the least. we have been instructed to claim to speak only english and deny that we speak any french. which makes for an interesting class because there are always the wise guys who crack jokes in french and then look at me like they just got away with something. but during this particular class i had to compromise a bit and holler a few things at them in french. they tend to surrender a bit of their pride when they know theyve been had. not that that was my intention. but i was flailing. you know? certainly...if i could go back in time i would be a much better student. i would study hard and i would listen all the time and i would never goof off. because i can see myself, or the student that i was in many of these kids.

so last night there was another beach party. the funny thing about parties here is they get started really early because it's dark really early (side note here...i dont use punctuation or capitalization properly or even consistently. and i know that. and i apologize for any frustration that may cause). so where was i...we (my roomie tom and friend ella) walked along the beach to this party and it was super dark even though it was only somewhere like 7:30pm. and the stars were all out and the beach was totally empty. it was about a half an hour walk so we had a beer along the way. sounds good hey? the party was at the house of a girl named elodie who is french and is 26 years old and who is putting in her time in the "outre mer" of French Guiana in order to gain points as a teacher. (in the french system you have to accumulate points in order to have options. french guiana earns you lots of points). so we had some drinks there but i was too tuckered out from having spent the whole day in the water/sun/sand so i had to walk home pretty early. the walk home was even better...not only because of the rum. but the waves seem louder at night. and our senses are heightened when we are alone (i think). and i like to have some time to myself here because it is kind of rare at the moment. though yesterday i had to say goodbye to my first real french friend. its not that i dont have friends here but most of them are other assistants or teachers in the same school, not that it makes them any less valid, but they are people who are in the same situation as myself and so we have a kind of camaraderie already. my friend that left was sam hes back to france to take some medical exams and to become a real live doctor (i think doctors in france earn points like teachers do). anyways i only knew him a little while but he made this place feel a bit more like home and i was pretty sad to see him go.

so im going now to the saturday market with sebastien and sebastien. and we will have lunch there and buy lots of exotic fruits and they will tell me how much they hate it here (they are divas...) and then ill come back for the sea...or maybe a scooter ride!



okay!
bonne continuation