This is the second of three posts about my apartment
because I once again am not including pictures. It’s not ready for its close-up
yet! But I promise that pictures of both the outside and inside will soon
appear. The building in on a small, pedestrian-only street in the old part of
town, and I’m right above a hat shop called Tête à tête. How French – and how punny!
Since I moved in to the apartment I’ve mostly focused on
decorating it so it feels less lonely and empty (I’m really going to be living
on the bare minimum in terms of kitchen stuff/furniture since I’m not going to
buy too much stuff that I’ll only be able to use for six months – I just need
to find a happy medium between comfortable and Spartan). Like I said before, I’m
really still not so hot on living alone, so I’m doing everything I can to not
feel lonely! Aside from decorating I’ve cleaned too, but I still need to do
more of that. I’ve put up all my pictures from home, hung my scarves on the
wall, and lit candles everywhere (which is actually mostly to combat some icky
smell that seems to be lingering about the apartment despite me mopping the
floor four times). I also got creative today and bought plastic place mats with
funny pictures that I tacked to my walls as colorful posters. Also, I say “creative”
but really I mean “cheap” because they were a heck of a lot cheaper than the
posters/wall hangings in the home goods store where I bought them.
I spent today in Bordeaux because I had to go for a
medical exam to validate my visa and get yet another large stamp/sticker in my
passport. It was annoying to have to take the train there and back today, but
it’s also always so nice to go to a city that is bigger than Périgueux; like I’ve
said, I feel way more relaxed when there are people everywhere. The quietness
of Périgueux stresses me out a bit, subconsciously.
Tomorrow is my first real day of classes on my own. Three
of the five classes I have tomorrow will be me teaching in a separate
classroom. I’m a little nervous, but I have a lesson planned out about road
trips in the United States, so at least I’m prepared. And if it doesn’t go well
– hey, it doesn’t go well. In any case, it won’t be a disaster. And I decided a
while ago that as long as half of my classes are easy/interested to learn, I’ll
be okay, and I’m already anticipating that it will be more than that. But
tomorrow will be the first real test of that.
Since Vienna, there isn’t much to recount. There really
isn’t anything to do in Périgueux over break. I hung out with the other
assistants a lot, but we didn’t do too much. We decided that it might be good
to join a dance class (yes, I’m so desperate to do something that I’m willing
to take a dance class – and I hate dancing!) or another activity to have
something to do regularly and to meet some young French people if possible.
Marina also recommended that we start doing a mini “exchange” in which she
would help me learn some Spanish and I would help her work on her English. So
we’ll start that this week as well! I also have my first real tutoring session
with the little kids on Thursday, and I’m definitely looking forward to that.
That will always be a good thing to look forward to during the week.
I’m off to watch Modern
Family for now. I’ve gone through my Modern
Family DVDs about three times already. I definitely should have brought
more TV shows with me…
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