Day 54 (Monday)

I woke up and really didn’t want to go to school in case it was that awful teacher from Friday, I didn’t feel enthusiastic about going in at all. I went in the hope that JC is back but it was the same shitty teacher – utterly useless – I read three sentences all morning – there was hardly any speaking and it was seriously boring. She was talking about the different standards of the French language such as academic, formal, informal, slang on so on – what’s the bloody point in that when I’m struggling to use the past bloody tense?

Merve wasn’t feeling very well and was utterly pissed off with the whole thing and poor Michael was completely lost ; it was complete waste of three hours and none of us wanted to go back after break but we did and the rest of the morning was just as bad.

I still don’t know the teacher’s name and I don’t really care! She is just winging it all the time, it is screamingly obvious to me as a language teacher that she has done no preparation whatsoever and is just following the incredibly boring book to the letter; you don’t need to be a qualified teacher to do this and I’m beginning to wonder if she is qualified.

The speaking activities were pathetic and did not make you want to speak. There were pictures of caricatures and famous French singers and we were asked to match the person with their caricature – why?  This does not encourage speaking, Michael and I just pointed saying ‘Il est ce’ (he is this one)

 There were two new students after break I think one is English and the other is probably American or Canadian and I felt sorry for them if this is their first experience of French classes.

She ended the class with listening to some snippets from French songs to match a sentence in the book that wasn’t explained – what’s the f..ing  point ? I felt really angry and cheated at the end of the morning and was in a bad mood when I got home. Huw was also in a strange mood because of going to London again tomorrow.

I also had to pay a £4,000 tax bill so that really didn’t help!

I did some self study transferring information from my old notebook into a new one which was good revision because I learned sod all today in class and it did make me feel a bit better.

I had some time reading in the sun and madam bitch texted me saying that she was at the school paying for her next classes and asked to see me tomorrow morning. I told her I couldn’t because I was in class and could see her at 1pm as usual. She sent an angry text back saying ‘but you said mornings in August’, which is fair enough because I did say that when I thought I was only going to be studying for four weeks so I told her that my director had extended my classes and that I could see her any day this week at 1pm. She replied saying that 1pm was impossible – does this mean that she’s going to the gym in Monaco every day at 1pm? I swear she’s just testing me to see how much she can order me around. After a lot of texting back and fore I am now seeing her at 5pm tomorrow, which is a total pain as I’ll be going to Nice in the morning for class with the moron, then I’ll be back in Villefranche and then  get the bus to Mont Boron and climb the mountain to madam’s house. But at least she’s paid for more classes. I asked her how many classes she’s paid for and she said one and half hours this week and that she would see after that. I asked William how many she had paid for and he said nine! I wonder if she as any idea that I’m the only English teacher at International House and it might be a good idea to be nicer to me. I’m dreading seeing her again but this is what is paying for my classes.  Today hasn’t been the best day since we got here but we had a lovely dinner washed down with the marvellous pale rose wine admiring the view remembering why we love here so much.