Phew, finally made it!!

My first blog after coming here. It has to be long and it's taking a long time and lot of patience. I for one am not a frequent blogger but i'm doing things that need to be blogged about. you can forget the punctuation for a few sentences here since i'm using the azerty keyboard and i dont have the patience to get the punctuation right; getting he right spelling is already a big deal for me, i cant be bothered with the punctuation too.

For that limited number of people who do read my blog, you must already know that i'm supposed to have left for france on the 26th september. now this is what happened after the 26th. i left chennai on the morning of the 26th with a lot of baggage and no idea of what to expect. ananth, viren and mika came over to my place on the 26th morning to see me off and i met cyco at the airport. for the first flight i thought it was the worst experience ever. fortunately it didnt last very long and i reached delhi slightly sick and pretty cold too. delhi was fun; it was new delhi so i suppose that made a difference. the conference was fun, its nice to have met all the other assistants and finally meet kripalinee seeparsad in the flesh (for all the 'help' she gave us before leaving). they gave us some last minute advice on what to expect and that was pretty useful (one of them actually said that meals could sometimes last even 5 hours here, for which we all laughed. oddly enough, it is true. a simple dinner at one of the prof's houses lasted from 8 pm to 1 am). i met himanshu at delhi and even did a bit of the sight seeing and had, which was undoubtedly, the best panneer tikka and beer ever!

the stupid people at the embassy took us to the airport at 8 pm for a 2 am flight (what were they thinking?) and left us there on our own. not that we needed much help anyway. i was asleep at the airport on anbu's backpack at midnight when the whole jing bang decided to wake me up and celebrate my birthday. that was fun, but its odd having coca cola and lays at midnight at the airport with a bunch of strangers on your birthday. finally we got into the flight at the indira gandhi airport at delhi and headed off to milan. we stopped at milan at 8 am and took the next flight to paris at 8 40 am, with just about enough time to freshen up a bit, look around the airport and take a few photos. i remember watching ocean's 13 on the plane and we reached paris CDG at 10 45 am, slightly ruffled and quite excited. people at paris are very friendly to foreigners, especially if you can speak in french. i had to take the TGV from the airport at 2 pm and i hadnt the slightest idea where it was. anyway we managed to make it in time and when they say that the TGV is fast, trust me, it IS fast; there were raindrops on the window outside whose streaks were parallel to the base because of the speed. i slept on the way to lyon and managed to get into the train to beaune in time. the train to beaune was a lot slower and more relaxed and i could see the landscape well. bourgogne (the region) is known for wine and right enough, youcan see vinyards everywhere. i reached beaune on time and met mme jocelyne guillot and the conceirge for the school, joe, at the station. the rest is a blur, reaching the appartment, meeting the room mates, partying at jocelyne's house till midnight and collapsing on the bed. thankfully the room mates let me sleep till about 11 the next day. mr michellon and his son took us out shopping for food the next day and i managed to get myself a coat and see a bit of the place.

on wednesday after that weekend the three of us (karla, stefanie and me) went to dijon to meet all the other assistants for our conference at the CRDP. i met the other english assistants in bourgogne there and turns out there are only 5 in beaune (my city). 3 english assistants (jeffrey, georgia and me) and karla (for spanish) and stefanie (for german). that evening after the conference we went to our first discotheque and oddly enough they kept playing many songs of the beatles.

we came back to beaune the next day and i started work at the lycée the next day. a lycée, isnt a grammar school (damn all the french teachers back in india who told you that); its actually a high school with three levels, starting from the sécondaire, primaire and then the terminale (that is the order). the terminale students after their studies take up their baccalauréat (thats their equivalent of our 12th board exam) and then get into either the university, or specialisation school or get a job. the lycée i am at, called the lycée E. J. Marey has about 800 students. thats not much by indian standards but still a lot here. the professors are friendly and i work with a great set of english teachers: the reason i say great is because they've given me fridays off ("you have to travel here!!") and most of the time let me prepare my own class ("i've given you the 'carte blanche' ") and are very helpful whenever i need them. (eeeee)

they've seem to take it upon themselves to keep us in good shape here. jocelyne inspected the house once and decided that we didnt have enough food, so all the professors keep inviting us to their houses for food! its exhausting, but a lot of fun too. the first time we went shopping here, it was after getting all our clothes from the laundromat, we went to a place called the casino and the three of us lost complete control and shopped to the extent that we could barely walk back. fortunately for us one of the professors saw us struggle back and even sent word the next day that all we had to do is give her a list of things we need and she'd buy them for us (what's wrong with the people here??).

the classes are a lot of fun. not all the time, because some of the students are really shy. they take forever to bring out two small sentences (which sound like french in the first place) and keep giggling a lot, and that annoys me terribly. on the upside however there are a few classes where the students are very eager to talk, however bad it is, but still, they try. i came here with no experience whatsoever in teaching (i did take tuitions for a couple of months before, but thats different) and i just assumed that they'd listen to everything i say and understand it as and when i said it. too bad that never happens. the first thing i learnt is that you have to think on your feet and visual aids always help. they love to discuss things about india, (there's a student here who's absolutely convinced that Buddha was from Pondicherry and that all the people in India worship cows). Nothing i said could diffuse that belief. one day i even played that song 'folk you' (junkyard groove) for them with the lyrics (although part of it has tamil and malayalam) and they loved it! they've got the oddest ideas in their heads about indians and when they were told that i was an indian they automatically assumed i dont eat meat, that am already married, that i worship cows, that i listen to classical music and that i hate rock. that was funny.

sight seeing in beaune doesnt take more than 2 days, 3 if you're slow. i've seen the hôtel dieu (an old hospice), the remparts, the palais de ducs, the église de notre dame, the centre ville, the shops, the bank; the old fort, everything! now i want to get out of beaune, try dijon, lilles (anbu's at Dunkerque) aix marseilles and even paris later. i have the holidays from the 27th to the 8th so i suppose i'll try to do something then.

whoever said that living away from home is easy and is a great experience obviously chose not to talk about the first few months. its not easy to wash your clothes, to clean up your room, to make your own food, to shop alone, to prevent spending excessively, to find your way around the city on your own, to remember to NOT sleep on the couch and then to head off to work in time every single day. but fret not, once you get into the groove, you're good to go. its the first week thats painful (i mean painful exactly as it is).

all that aside, i cant believe that its only been 3 weeks so far. well i've finally updated my blog, something i should have done a LONG LONG LONG time back, and i'm not really looking forward to doing it again in the next few weeks.