Back in action

So this week I returned to good old Avranches, but in good company. Dana is here (you can't even imagine how wonderful it is to have her around), and we had quite the week. We took her to Liberties on Tuesday so she could see our little pub. We were literally the only people there, which was brilliant. The barmaid's (I forget her name, oops) kid was even there, and he kept running around and shooting us with his toy gun. It's so much nicer in there because the smoking ban has been effective since the new year, and I can finally breathe. It's so nice. I know that means all of my compadres have to go outdoors to smoke, but whatever, I can inhale without choking, so I'll take it. I don't miss the smoke. On that topic, my default lesson plan of the week has been doing a debate about the smoking ban. I've actually had a pretty even divide between those who love it and those who hate it. This is the most involved many of them have been (which means they spoke a lot of french, supposedly on accident, because it got pretty heated). Yay for conflict, it makes the hour go by so much faster. Also speaking of classes, I still had a class on Monday afternoon where no one showed, and this morning at 8am only one girl came. I gave her a list and told her to give it to her mates. From now on I'm taking names. At least I was able to join Irene's spanish class and learn some salsa! (I'm not even kidding). Oh and in my class where I gave them a project to do (a 5 min presentation) and they had over 3 weeks to prepare, no one was ready to present. No one remembered. They are 19. I was so angry, and I tried to convey that anger but I don't know enough French to scare them nor do they know enough English to be scared. Grrr.

On a better note, my class of little philosophers went brilliantly today. We only got to the first 3 questions of the questionnaire, but they did a great job. We spent the whole hour discussing what makes something a "person" with moral standing. When I told them to think of an alien or robot or whatever, I think I lost them. They can only think so far out of the box at this point, but they're getting there. Each week we make progress. They hit on a lot of key points, and we even got to something I wrote a paper about once (the potential for life). I mentioned that I wrote about it once, and they all got excited and asked if we could read it. Um, I don't know. We'll see. I'll have to touch it up a bit, but it's not like they'll notice that it sucks. We even talked about souls today. Though not everyone particiapated, they all looked interested and looked like they were thinking. I think some were just scared to put their ideas out there. The class has also got me rethinking some things, and I may repost later with more thoughts on that. Maybe soon.

On Wednesday Dana and I went to Rennes so she could see a bigger city in this area. It was the most beautiful day; we couldn't have asked for better. The sun was shining, it was warm and there wasn't a cloud in sight. We spent the whole day shopping because all the stores have some super sales going on. Dana and I found this fabulous bag shop and bought some cheap (but rather nice) purses. I have a red one now, and it can double as a school bag because it's just big enough to fit my notebooks and folders. I know you're all interested to hear that. Also, I made a rather risky purchase, and I'm not sure yet if it was a good call. I found this light weight jacket in the baby doll style (wide collar, big buttons, bells out). It's also this copper/orange color. Neither Dana or I can figure out if it's cute, but it's definitely French and it was cheap. I thought I should branch out while here, so why not? So anyways, we walked a ton and soaked in the sun and admired the beautiful buildings. It was a great day. There's nothing more I can say.

Last night Dana left me to go to London for the weekend to visit another friend who's over here. Since she left, I thought it'd be a good night to start going back to swim practices. I thought I'd suck because I've been gone for a few weeks, but I did okay. I had to do a timed 400 (meters, not yards) and got a respectable 6:40. Thats only a few seconds off my old 500 yard meet time, so I was feeling pretty good. I think my coach was pleasantly surprised as well (not the fastest, obviously, but not bad just coming back from vacation). He tried to rope me into entering the meet next Saturday. He told me to "profit" from my stay and go to a French swim meet. Um, no. Actually, I have a good reason: I'm taking Dana to Paris next weekend for her flight home. I told him I'd be gone, but I don't think he believed me. Oh well. He was going to put me in the 100 backstroke, and he doesn't know that I still can't do a decent start. He also thinks I like backstroke (laugh) all because I choose that as my "choice" stroke for practice. Little does he know that I was never a backstroker, suck at it, and only choose it because of all the "choice" strokes it happens to be the fastest and it's the easiest way for me to keep up with the faster folks. Little does he know. Though I have to admit, I've done a heck of a lot of backstroke since I started. Maybe it is my new stroke. But again, starts and flip turns are sketchy.

Well I'm done rambling. I'm just killing time before my next class. I will post about Paris soon. I hope everyone's Christmas/New Year went splendidly... tootles.