Wednesday market was setting up and the Thai food man said bonjour, it’s
very exciting that the locals are realising that we’re still here.
In class today we did role play again to practise formal and informal
greetings and goodbyes. Michael was the director of a company, Shanna and
Alison were accountants, Vlada was HR and I was an important client about to
sign a huge contract – better than being a short alien I guess.
We then went on to learn how to present ourselves to new people saying
stuff like my name is, I am a teacher, I study French etc. and got two new
words – married is marie(e) and single is celibataire. There was a slight
awkward pause as three out for five of us are native English speakers; I
couldn’t not say anything so I asked if the word for single in French has the
same meaning as in English? Annick didn’t get it at first so I said ‘catholic
priests are celibate.’ She thought it was hilarious when she caught on saying
‘no, not all single people are celibate to which I replied ‘thank god!’
Vlada is starting to get on my nerves being rude
to Annick, she does it with a smile on her face but being a teacher I can see
exactly what she’s doing and she is patronising Annick and I can tell she feels
it too. It’s just little things but they are horrible. Annick will offer to
write the verbs ‘avoir’ (to have) and etre (to be) on the board, which is
really useful to do a number of times because some of them are easily confused
such as ils ont and ils sont. Vlada said something along the lines of ‘we can
see them in the book’, what she if really saying is ‘we’re not stupid’. Annick
often introduces exercises giving us a few moments to look at them before
answering, to which Vlada has frequently said, ‘let’s just do them directly.’ I
know it’s only niggling but Annick really doesn’t deserve it.
The weather today has been very strange; it was
glorious all morning when I was in school and the humidity was very
uncomfortable when I was walking home. Then black clouds came rolling in –
biblical clouds – followed by a very brief but heavy downfall then the sun came
out again!
Homework is getting easier – who knows I may learn
French at this rate. I arranged to meet Mary tomorrow after school to make a
plan for July when she will help me set up the classroom ready for September.
I also got an email from William offering me a
private student called Anastasia from Russia for 4.5 a week in Mont Boron,
where our local Carrefour is, so it’s all looking very promising work-wise.
Huw spoke to his brother Gareth back in England
who told us that his daughter Laura, who works in theatre costume design, is
coming to Monaco for a week in a few weeks time and she is working on the
musical Dirty Dancing, I hate to admit it but I love that film! A few months
ago she worked on The Last Tango with Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone and she got my discount
tickets for superb seats, Huw refused to come so I took a friend. I really hope
Laura can get me tickets for Dirty Dancing and again Huw refuses to come so
hopefully Mara will be well enough to join me.
No box!
Comments
Post a Comment