What is this? A five year old could have drawn that! Yes, or perhaps a 31 year old teacher desperately trying to get her students to do something other than play cars or send text messages. This was my attempt at drawing Paris (look, I even included the chambre de bonnes!) for the kids since we have exhausted New York. Drawing in the tiny windows of the Empire State Building gets laborious after the third floor, so we had to move on to a "less exotic" locale. Less exotic for them of course...
Can you believe that next week will be my two month mark of working as an English teacher
Here are some vignettes of a typical day for me as an ESL teacher in France: My older kids have a fondness for disco (I blame France's worst radio station Nostalgie Radio for that) and while taking a break from my educational music that has been labeled as "nulle", we were shaking our groove thing to a CD called "Go Funk Yourself: Volume 2" reminiscent of when I went to 'Pride' in West Hollywood. During our choo-choo train dance that I actually bust out at adult parties, a heated argument ensued between two of my students. The crisis was that Thomas was insisting to the skeptical Louis that everyone in America says that it's raining men when it rains heavily. I'm pretty sure he was confusing the palpable raining cats and dogs expression, but I had to stop myself from correcting him as it surely would need a follow up explanation. There was no way that I was going to explain that The Pointer Sisters want to get absolutely soaking wet by "rough and tough" beefcakes falling out of the sky. I may actually be doing him a disservice as I picture him ten years from now in New York saying to his boss "Holy smokes is it raining men outside, we're going to get soaked, better grab my umbrella!". While my older kids have a thing for Studio 54, the musical selections for my little ones are a bit more curious. Not only do these baby hipsters know how to navigate my iPod, but they already recognize the musical genius that is LCD Soundsystem and The White Stripes. Every afternoon they request a "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" break where they vibrate around the room on their tippy toes screaming "my house! my house". It may not be the most appropriate song but I have been able to get them to incorporate their English much more than the insulting "red light green light" tunes that I'm supposed to force upon them. One mother told me that her 3 year old asked her, "On va my house?" He did me proud, my little one. Last week I had to give my first "time out", something that made me feel just terrible as I ignored a wailing child in another room. I wanted to hug him but I know he'll never learn that hitting his teacher because his name was written in purple is unacceptable behavior. After two minutes, the room where little Franc was left to cool off became a little too quiet. I ignored my suspicions and foolishly believed that he was learning his lesson, and I planned to let him back in the group in three more minutes. It wasn't until I saw our art projects being passed under the door, ripped up into tiny pieces, some of the with red x's and red marker splashes resembling blood that I discovered that precious Franc was not seeing the error in his ways, he was pissed. Each piece that was passed through got an enraged "et Voilà!". In short he was saying, "Look here bitch, you want to play? Voilà, let's play." The look of absolute horror poured down the faces of my kids who saw red x's on their Santa Clauses' eyes and mouths and blood squirting out of their little Christmas trees. Within seconds, I had a bunch of 3 year olds crying hysterically because Christmas was dead. Thank you Franc.
And for those of you who wanted to see me as a blonde, little Philippe has whipped up a portrait of me (that hangs proudly on my fridge!) in my blonde ambition days (and for good measure he threw in a tan). Incidentally, the dress is very Marc by Marc Jacobs. I may have a mini fashion designer on my hands! He might have been a bit too generous with my hips...and my cleavage for that matter. He's 4 years old. Vive la France.
