it's been a while
I confess, my blogging skills have been below par the past few days. Mainly because I'm ridiculously exhausted. Last night I was all tucked up in bed before half 9 - for anyone who has lived with me, particularly the Pilgrim Pad lot, they know that I never usually sleep until 1-2am. I don't know what it is - lingering jet lag maybe, but three weeks in? Anyway I fall asleep really easily, but then wake up around 3 and 5-6am every night. And I really wake up too - it takes ages to get back to sleep. And, with the exception of Monday, I've been in first period all this week too, so my alarm goes off at like 6.40 - though this morning I did rebel and set it for 6.50, even snoozing it until 7. I can still make school with 25 minutes to spare before my lesson starts... ideally, I'd like those 25 minutes in bed, but it's good to appear keen, even though that is clearly not the case.
So school wise, I'm very nearly finished introducing myself. Once I've finished the classes tomorrow, I'll be actually working with small groups of students to encourage them to speak English. Whilst I've been bored out of my mind doing the same presentation of myself to every English class in the school, I'm not looking forward to the preparation that comes with real teaching. Urgh. This week has been fine though - for anyone who may have been concerned about my mental health after reading the great breakdown of last week.
There's not a great deal to report, really. The tumble drier broke down, but has now been fixed. I know, my life really is too exciting.
Oh How I Met Your Mother's final series is on! And I get to watch it before all my friends back home (insert evil laugh here). I feel incredibly jammy about this. Fresh TV is undoubtedly one of the main perks of living in North America, along with the high quality McDonald's, which I discovered yesterday. Yesterday at school, my sad salad sandwich was not appealing to me at all, and with an extremely long lunch break, the inevitable occurred. Sod it, I thought, get me to those Golden Arches. It's only like a 5-10 minute walk too, so it's not really enough to work off the calories. I've told myself I'm only allowed McDonald's when I've had a really crap morning - so literally most days then. I managed to order myself a Big Mac meal. They make the food up in front of you, and they let you fill your drink yourself. And they serve ice tea. BEST PLACE EVAAAA. I took my iPad so I could make full use of the free WiFi (cheers Mcdo) and skype, but not one person was online to appreciate my Big Mac joy. So I was curled up in the corner watching How I Met Your Mother. A man took pity and was like 'eyyyy all on your own in the corner' - I think, he did say this in French so I'm not altogether sure. I said oui and laughed, so I think it was ok.
A woman asked me a question on the bus today too. I totally panicked, wrenching my headphones out of my ears, before stuttering out a really bad version of 'I don't speak French very well, sorry'. She smiled sympathetically and said 'oh', whilst I got another sympathy smile from the woman across the aisle. The most embarrassing thing was that I couldn't even say 'I can't speak French well' well. She was asking about the bus route, which I don't really feel local enough yet to discuss, so I comforted myself with the idea that I would be very little help anyway. And also an episode of Doctor Who naturally (David Tennant era, The Fires of Pompeii. Yes, I teared up a tad. Yes, on the bus. I held it in. Don't judge me.)
So as I finished at 11 today, I headed home to spend an afternoon doing sod-all in bed. Nap, How I Met Your Mother, tea and bed - that's what I had in mind. Alice had other plans. She text me asking if I fancied going into Old Quebec, and, seeing the sun shining through my bedroom window, I decided I really couldn't waste the day. But first we had to attend Alice's school to pick up her forgotten "agenda" (it's like a study file), so I got to visit. It's a private school, so it's very grand, and all the kids have MacBooks. The entrance hall looks like it's a missing piece of a train station too! I met her responsable too, who was very nice, and she promised she would take us to Walmart, which she seemed to be incredibly excited about. Minus the stress of the ridiculous trek that we took to get there, I imagine I'd be quite excited too. So yes, we headed into the old town, and we spontaneously took a trip on the Levis ferry. Levis (leh-vee: not at all pronounced like the jeans) is across the St Lawrence from Quebec City. The ferry only takes like 7 minutes, but there's not a great deal to see on the other side, so we stayed on the ferry and soaked up the sun and the beautiful views of our new hometown, before we were battered by the wind on the way back and froze. It really was quite beautiful though, and I'm glad we did it. Another thing ticked off the great long list that Alice has planned - she's far more organised than I am, despite the odd forgetting of an agenda. Anyway, here's some photos from the day:
So tomorrow I will finish introducing myself to classes. I haven't done every class, but I've done the majority, and frankly if I have to say "Hi, my name's Hannah. I'm from Newcastle, in England" one more time after tomorrow, I might just explode. I am keen to get into my job properly - maybe then teachers will stop asking me if I'm a new student in their class. No. I'm 20 years old. This school goes up to like 16. Give me a break. I'm just kicking about waiting for my washing to dry - I know, what a riveting life I do lead. So I'm watching Futurama with Andre, pretending I find more than 5% of it funny. Which I don't, because it's very rarely funny. But live and let live, etc etc etc. It's really sad that at the age of 20 I'm desperate to get all tucked up in bed at 9.30, but such is life. I'm hoping I'm going to have Friday off - though, rechecking timetables, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have one class - first period, of course. I guess I'd rather it was first period, because then it's over and I can have pretty much a three day weekend, but pre 7am alarms are so soul destroying. Remind me in a few years to get a real job with a commute that allows me to fall out of bed at 7 at the earliest. I've kinda written a lot more than I was expecting to write, so I'm going to end it there for tonight. Hopefully my next blog post will be full of tales of my first class.
Unless I write tomorrow - then it'll be full of the same kind of tripe as this entry, only with less photographs, I imagine. asta la buh bye.
So school wise, I'm very nearly finished introducing myself. Once I've finished the classes tomorrow, I'll be actually working with small groups of students to encourage them to speak English. Whilst I've been bored out of my mind doing the same presentation of myself to every English class in the school, I'm not looking forward to the preparation that comes with real teaching. Urgh. This week has been fine though - for anyone who may have been concerned about my mental health after reading the great breakdown of last week.
There's not a great deal to report, really. The tumble drier broke down, but has now been fixed. I know, my life really is too exciting.
Oh How I Met Your Mother's final series is on! And I get to watch it before all my friends back home (insert evil laugh here). I feel incredibly jammy about this. Fresh TV is undoubtedly one of the main perks of living in North America, along with the high quality McDonald's, which I discovered yesterday. Yesterday at school, my sad salad sandwich was not appealing to me at all, and with an extremely long lunch break, the inevitable occurred. Sod it, I thought, get me to those Golden Arches. It's only like a 5-10 minute walk too, so it's not really enough to work off the calories. I've told myself I'm only allowed McDonald's when I've had a really crap morning - so literally most days then. I managed to order myself a Big Mac meal. They make the food up in front of you, and they let you fill your drink yourself. And they serve ice tea. BEST PLACE EVAAAA. I took my iPad so I could make full use of the free WiFi (cheers Mcdo) and skype, but not one person was online to appreciate my Big Mac joy. So I was curled up in the corner watching How I Met Your Mother. A man took pity and was like 'eyyyy all on your own in the corner' - I think, he did say this in French so I'm not altogether sure. I said oui and laughed, so I think it was ok.
A woman asked me a question on the bus today too. I totally panicked, wrenching my headphones out of my ears, before stuttering out a really bad version of 'I don't speak French very well, sorry'. She smiled sympathetically and said 'oh', whilst I got another sympathy smile from the woman across the aisle. The most embarrassing thing was that I couldn't even say 'I can't speak French well' well. She was asking about the bus route, which I don't really feel local enough yet to discuss, so I comforted myself with the idea that I would be very little help anyway. And also an episode of Doctor Who naturally (David Tennant era, The Fires of Pompeii. Yes, I teared up a tad. Yes, on the bus. I held it in. Don't judge me.)
So as I finished at 11 today, I headed home to spend an afternoon doing sod-all in bed. Nap, How I Met Your Mother, tea and bed - that's what I had in mind. Alice had other plans. She text me asking if I fancied going into Old Quebec, and, seeing the sun shining through my bedroom window, I decided I really couldn't waste the day. But first we had to attend Alice's school to pick up her forgotten "agenda" (it's like a study file), so I got to visit. It's a private school, so it's very grand, and all the kids have MacBooks. The entrance hall looks like it's a missing piece of a train station too! I met her responsable too, who was very nice, and she promised she would take us to Walmart, which she seemed to be incredibly excited about. Minus the stress of the ridiculous trek that we took to get there, I imagine I'd be quite excited too. So yes, we headed into the old town, and we spontaneously took a trip on the Levis ferry. Levis (leh-vee: not at all pronounced like the jeans) is across the St Lawrence from Quebec City. The ferry only takes like 7 minutes, but there's not a great deal to see on the other side, so we stayed on the ferry and soaked up the sun and the beautiful views of our new hometown, before we were battered by the wind on the way back and froze. It really was quite beautiful though, and I'm glad we did it. Another thing ticked off the great long list that Alice has planned - she's far more organised than I am, despite the odd forgetting of an agenda. Anyway, here's some photos from the day:
One of the beautiful streets at Place Royal. SO French.
Chateau Frontenac
again...
Skyline shots
#coverphoto
I love this!
Super beautiful St. Lawrence.
This is fabulous too, the wall is painted so beautifully.
So tomorrow I will finish introducing myself to classes. I haven't done every class, but I've done the majority, and frankly if I have to say "Hi, my name's Hannah. I'm from Newcastle, in England" one more time after tomorrow, I might just explode. I am keen to get into my job properly - maybe then teachers will stop asking me if I'm a new student in their class. No. I'm 20 years old. This school goes up to like 16. Give me a break. I'm just kicking about waiting for my washing to dry - I know, what a riveting life I do lead. So I'm watching Futurama with Andre, pretending I find more than 5% of it funny. Which I don't, because it's very rarely funny. But live and let live, etc etc etc. It's really sad that at the age of 20 I'm desperate to get all tucked up in bed at 9.30, but such is life. I'm hoping I'm going to have Friday off - though, rechecking timetables, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have one class - first period, of course. I guess I'd rather it was first period, because then it's over and I can have pretty much a three day weekend, but pre 7am alarms are so soul destroying. Remind me in a few years to get a real job with a commute that allows me to fall out of bed at 7 at the earliest. I've kinda written a lot more than I was expecting to write, so I'm going to end it there for tonight. Hopefully my next blog post will be full of tales of my first class.
Unless I write tomorrow - then it'll be full of the same kind of tripe as this entry, only with less photographs, I imagine. asta la buh bye.
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