Classes, Cakes and Cell-Phones

Wednesday was an early start – even though I haven’t officially started yet, I went in to observe a few classes to get an idea of how the school works. It was interesting to see the different classes as I was always in pretty much the same set at school and haven’t ever done any work experience in secondary. The difference in attitude and ability from class to class that a teacher has to deal with is crazy.

Mobile phones are a bit of a menace in the classroom but unfortunately for the students the teachers know exactly what they’re doing and the odds are very definitely in their favour. It was a struggle not to laugh when a confiscated phone rang and the teacher answered it to tell them not to call again during lessons – the profs don’t lose.

After the lessons had finished we had a quick lunch and then headed to my teacher’s favourite bakery. It’s quite difficult to explain the bakery experience so if you can’t visualise it, just know that it was the best part of my day. It was a huge shop with quiche, pizza, sandwiches, tarts, pastries, cakes, bread, rolls, croissants – everything you could possibly want. The smell was AMAZING. The bakery was also one of my exceptionally rare French language success stories – just generally a good time.

After this, we went to the supermarket. Although it’s possibly not an activity for a short holiday, if you’re ever in a country for a decent amount of time doing normal things like going shopping and comparing it with what you’re used to is very interesting. Super-U, the supermarket that we visited, had some really different products to what I would have found in the UK. The ‘So British’ display stand for a product I’d never heard of definitely made me smile.

In the evening, I had a room inspection by the school accountant. The school are apparently going to make my room even nicer which is great news.

I spent the rest of the night chatting to the lovely Mlle Stam in Angers (the fantastic author of ‘Cupcakes and Croissants’ on my list of year abroad blogs on the right) and watching Sweeney Todd. One of the profs is Tim Burton obsessed and she got the songs stuck in my head. I’ve been watching a lot of films in the evenings – they’re about all my mashed brain can handle at the moment!