time to kill between classes

so hello. although this is hard due to the fact that i am writing on a french keyboard since i am in my school's library. i was going to mess around on facebook but it is taking forever for that to charge up, so i figure this is a better way to pass the time than sitting in the break room drinking cup after cup of coffee.
i am normally teaching one of my groups of CM1 kids, but they had to go to some thing... i don't quite remember what it is. so i am waiting until my youngest class starts, but they have also left the school to go elsewhere, and i am unsure of when they will be returning. my one teacher was like oh! you're done! good for you!
but i don't think that i am. i wish that i had been able to move this class up to this block - then i could go home and tackle that all too important task of napping.
oh well. what can i tell you folks?
i have three full weeks of work until my february vacation starts, when i will be heading up to paris for the night (i rented myself a hotel room and i am quite looking forward to a night by myself in paris) grab my jet lagged parents from CDG, come back to tours, and spend the next week with my parents. we will be ending our trip in paris, and then i will be making my way back to bonnie scotland! three nights in edinburgh, and i still need to make reservations for a hostel in glasgow. i should get on that. i am quite excited for this trip - there is a lot that i meant to do last time that i didn't get done, and i want to check out the university scene up there. grahame told me that i wouldn't like glasgow - even though he's from there - but then he decided i might actually get on quite well in glasgow. christine seems to love it there, says the people are even nicer than the ones in edinburgh, which is saying something. i've been reading lonely planet and checking out what each city has to offer and both seem excellent.
last night jen brough some chicken downstairs (i know that i am random right now - bear with me) for us to grill up with some rice and some of the veggies we have. have you ever opened chicken and had it smell like fish? because i did last night. i asked her about it and she said it should be fine - alyson pointed out that when she worked in the deli they had to use chicken within three days. well i cooked it anyway, then saw on the package that she had bought it the 10th of january; yesterday was the 20th of january. so i cooked it an extra five minutes and didn't eat any, nor did jen cause she was like oh yeah it does taste weird (i chalk part of that up to the weird dijon mustard she said to cook it in - we all know i don't like mustard). alyson was the ballsy one who ate it and she's fine today. i am impressed.
but you know what i was not impressed by?
i got off the bus this afternoon and was walking down the sidewalk, minding my own business, and i see a man next to his car with the door open. i think nothing of it until i see that he is leaning on his car with one hand on the roof of the car and one hand hidden in front of him, practically lying on his car. now - i have been to enough field parties with enough of my drunken male friends to know the stance of a man peeing on something. this was in the middle of the street, next to a high school at around one in the afternoon. are you kidding? really? and there was a flow of pee down the curb. that is gross. this is a country where men apparently mark their territory like dogs all over the place - and speaking of dogs - let their dogs shit all over the sidewalk. you can't gaze at a beautiful blue sky above you because chances are you'll step in a nice little present left by a dog. they also seem to have no qualms about nose picking. i clearly remember being in kindergarten and a boy in my class getting YELLED AT for picking his nose. here people will talk to you while digging for gold. it's crazy, and everyone i talk to seems to have the same reaction as me: trying really, really hard not to laugh at these people while they talk to you with their fingers up their noses. a small child would be expected to have a finger up his or her nose. not a 30 year old.
anyways. enough of my gross france rant, let me rant about french men. they seem to think that as a woman you are obligated to fall in love with them the second they show any interest in you. it's incredible. i have had one kid tell me that he wanted to marry me within ten minutes of knowing me, and that he wanted to go to the US with me to meet my family. i told him he was scaring me and that he was too intense (in french because the boy spoke no english) and finished it with a f*** off in english. i think he is the only person who does not know the f-bomb, it seems like the only word all of the frenchies know. i met someone else who said "why can't you tell me you love me? (known him for ohhhhh 5 hours) are you scared of love?" no, psychopath i am not. i am actually quite a loving person. and yes i do have attachment issues and i have something equivalent to fort knox built around my heart, but that has nothing to do with why i will not say i love you. i will not say i love you because i don't love you because i don't know you. go be a crazy-ass elsewhere.

well the recess bell has rung: i am going to get going.
peace

hm. so i think

that i've either a) completely messed up my sleep cycle by going to bed at 730 in the morning friday night/saturday morning or b) developed a form of insomia. lately i've been needing to watch movies to fall asleep. although i am feeling quite exhausted right now. but anyways.
things here are going well, i'm loving my new hair - it's so nice to have it short again and somewhat manageable. plus the color is wicked fun. alyson and jen have reminded me that sometimes all you need are some awesome girlfriends in life. it was awesome friday night because almost all of the assistants were together at cody's, and it has been forever and a day since that happened.
i've done a somewhat half assed job with my lessons for tomorrow, but part of that i can't seem to print off what i need to print off at one of my schools, so im just going to repeat what i did at another school. even though it's not following the plan i have for that school. damn.
i will leave you with some images of friday. first one is roman, who is russian pretending to be an angry russian. he pulled it off.
the second, hilary, joanna, and grahame enjoying the effects of sangria.
the last one is grahame and phillipp, the german and the scotsman, being fantastic, as per usual.
peace out.

there are more reasons to stay in france than the food.

the hair dressers. i have a fantastic haircut with super awesome color option. and i'm very excited.
what else can i say?
i gave my kids tests yesterday and monday, and i've finally finished grading all of them. which took forever. but it was alright. i had a few kids who didn't understand the directions, one boy who cheated off one girl, and i'm not sure how to handle that situation at all. but i'll deal with that tomorrow.

i was given the brilliant idea from my boss. i've introduced my students to curious george, and now they get to write their own stories (basically the first few sentences of introduction) about different animals. so we're starting those projects in my classes - but i'm not letting all of them know what exactly the project is. i'm also supposed to be getting observed soon by my supervisors. gross. last time that happened i was not prepared for it and i didn't enjoy it that much. but whatever. i'm just hoping she doesn't come to the classes where the teacher's aren't in the room. this is for a couple reasons. the first is that the classes are terrible and i have to be absolutely heinous with them otherwise they just don't respond. i know they want us to do the positive reinforcement thing with them, but the fact of the matter is that these kids have been programmed to only respond to fear of an instructor, not respect. this is only at one school. we have also done exactly what they told us not to do, which is cut the class in half and i take one half for 45 minutes and the other half for 45 minutes. i'm not supposed to do this because they are required by law to to have an hour and a half of english a week. well, technically i'm with these kids for an hour and a half, but they are only with me for 45 minutes since we split them. but this way, they get to talk more, instead of me with 30 students. one teacher to 30 students is just not fair. the people who teach in high schools and middle schools aren't allowed to have more than 15 in their classes. jeez.

but i don't have to worry about that tomorrow. i've got to get through tomorrow's classes and then my weekend starts - i've got nothing on my plate for friday, or saturday, or sunday. hooray!

pretty soon my parents visit, and that should be real fun. it will be nice to see them, considering how long it's been. my cousin nick just found me on facebook because he felt like joining after checking out my pictures. i hadn't realized how long it had been since i'd seen my family. everyone got together for one of my cousin's weddings this summer, but i was here. kinda makes me feel out of the loop. but oh well.

i did discover that itunes has CSI, and i downloaded what was there of season 8, so i'm all caught up on that. THANK GOD. i know we were all concerend.

alright. i'm off to bed.
night night kiddies

i forgot what saturday night was like

until last night.
last night was the first night id gone out dancing (like serious 1-430 in the morning dancing) in over a month. possibly over 2.
and it was a blast. forgot how much fun that was. minus the INSANELY drunk girl who kept falling over, and her two drunk guy friends. then the bouncer told them to leave. which was nice. same bouncer who danced the last song with me because it's a silly tango song called la kareoka... i have no idea how to spell it. see hot hilary and her red face after dancing all night, accompanied by bouncer. the song is in french. it sounds like kareoke, but ends with an "ah" sound instead. got me beat.
so joanna and whitney and bryan and malek and elenia and a few others took me out and made me remember that there are awesome people here (although none of those people were french - american and greek - sweet) and dancing to awesome music gets the happy chemicals going.
that's all for now.

videos!

yes. from the holidays. hooray!



Christmas countdown? necessary!



this one's from the bus. we were given whiskey, even though there's no booze on the bus. thanks, guys.

okay. that's it for now. it takes forever for those to upload onto here.

its official

after my parents and i head to paris for the last leg of their trip here, i will be going to edinburgh on feb. 16th. my return ticket is from glasgow on feb. 22. doing a little independent exploring here. i even booked my hostel in edinburgh for three nights.
yehaw.

and it's a long way to come from the dog and duck kareoke machine
and saturday night's drunken dreams.

now why'd you wanna go put stars in their eyes?
it's the same old story but they just didn't realize
that it's a long way to come from your private bedroom dance routine
and saturday night's drunken dreams....

yes, i am very excited. :)

last day of classes for the first week back

I was given a friendly reminder of camp today at one of my schools. Thought I would share. There is a little boy in one of my classes who has a father who is constantly in and out of jail, for various charges. I'm sure you can imagine his behavior. He's about 8 years old. I try to keep him up front with me, so that he stays engaged in class and all that.
The elementary schools in France do this thing for a couple months where the police come into the older kids classes and teach them about safety and road signs and blah blah blah. Some schools in the states do this too, i think. As we're walking the students in from recess, the two police officers are behind me, and my little boy with the troubled home life is in front. As we're walking, a teacher pokes her head out of her classroom with a little girl, and says to me 'where is his teacher? he hit her' so I called out to the teacher who was a short ways in front of me, and she came back, and they started asking what happened (still walking) and when his teacher found out she said "well, you can't do that. I mean look! the police came for you! you can't go hitting other students!" and so, to make some sort of impression or joke, the other teacher said "Yeah, you don't want it to end like this do you?" and put him in between the two police officers, told him the officers were going to take him away. And these were big fucking policemen. And he is a tiny little 8 year old boy with glasses and behavioral problems because his father's been in and out of jail more times than he can count.
I almost hit her. His face crumbled. He started crying so hard. But, instead of hitting her I told him to catch up to the rest of his class, which shocked the other two teachers. I glared at them. And then they started disciplining (which in France means yelling at) him for hitting the little girl in front of his entire class. It was awful.

Which brings to mind the shocking difference between the school system here and in the states. Here, the schools seem to function on public humiliation of classes. I hear a lot more personal attacks on students and yelling in my classes than I remember hearing when I was little, and seeing when I was thinking of becoming a teacher in the states. The semesters I student taught were in kindergarten and pre-k classrooms, so maybe that has to do with it. Well actually no, most places in the states encourage students to talk it out. Here, you tell on the other student and it's up to the teacher to talk it out for you. Maybe this is why my friends and I have found French men lack communication skills. Who knows?

But, other than that the week went pretty well. I get to spend the next couple days coming up with evaluations for my kids and all that stuff.

Also thought you all might enjoy the camp/summer work not involving being a teacher photos. They are fantastic. Especially the one where I'm getting beat by the other counselors, and my co-leader does nothing to stop it. And the campers were asleep in the back of the van. Sweet. The last one is me being official and on the phone in my bathing suit trying to make plans for us to have a sweet end of camp bash. Righto.

my name is hilary park

and i have a pink scarf. i bought it today because it's pink and has silver sparkly thread in it and really, it made me wicked happy. i am wearing it around my apartment because it makes me happy. no need to judge. it's awesome.
see? awesome happy pink scarf. with lifeguard sweatshirt option. jen's across the table from me messing with her cell phone and alyson is watching that go down. we just finished a mass lesson prep thing. made some review exercises. word searches are my best friends. so are jumbles. and matching exercises. we are now discussing men and love and differences in cultures. well, they are. i'm not because i'm blogging. and multi-tasking is not my forte. today was a day of: sleeping until 9. then again until 1030 after deciding that 9 was way too early to be up on my day off, especially considering i had 9 total hours of sleep from sunday morning to tuesday night. it was a rough time. then i got up and ate some yogurt and cereal, cleaned, organized, then i was off. france telecom to figure out my phone bill, dealt with an extremely nice lady, and then some shopping therapy (there are 30-70 percent off sales all over this city) which was awesome. home to find the number of a doctor - you know, despite this country being ridiculously more expensive than the US, it cost me about 7 euros 50 centimes for three packs of pills. three. in the states, for name brand, it's about 30 -40 dollars for ONE. wow. went to the doctor. went to some more stores. bought myself a pink scarf. and it was good. a little chocolate and a lot of dinner later i was making lesson plans and listening to music.
today was a day that i did entirely by myself. all alone. and i was awesome. tomorrow is a full day of 5 classes, but i don't work friday. although at 10 i have to remember how to get to my boss' office. i made an appointment with them so i could change my schedule, and also to ask them why we aren't given any sort of curriculum with the materials we are supposed to be teaching our kids. bitch at them a little.
who knows what the weekend holds. hopefully more fun with this pink scarf. kid you not.

well folks

isn't this a pretty picture? it's at the musee des beaux arts. of course the flowers aren't there now since it's so cold, but i figured i'd put a little spot of happy pink flower fun in this entry.
normally i try to keep the emotional, more intimate entries out of here, and in the paper journal. but, i feel as though this is part of the journey, or at least what's happening with me is so influenced by this whole adventure, that i can share.
and for those of you who know - hilary doesn't share her emotions well with others. so this is a big deal.
but i guess that's a good place to start. i came over here, very convinced of who i was, confident in my identity, sure of my plans. things have started to change. being over here, i've discovered parts of my personality that i had no idea existed. i have, for starters, been forced to be way more independent than i am used to, and this caused a mild bout of depression when i first got here. it was emphasized when those fraudulent charges were made to my account, and when my check for 3,000 euros was somehow missing from the french bank. i cried over that a lot. more than i care to admit. but, i figured out how i work in situations like that. i figured out how me, alone, without the influence of family and friends, deals with damned bankers. granted, i did call my parents in tears and my father told me to make the bank feel like shit and cry in front of them, but in the end i do feel as though i was fairly independent throughout the whole thing.
i think i've always associated independence with being alone. and being alone with being lonely. which, i have learned, is not the case. independence does not mean being alone at all. AT ALL. and being alone, doesn't mean being lonely. some of my loneliest moments here, i have been surrounded by other people, next to my roommate, living with a family, or at a party. some of my favorite days and moments have been alone. wow. just looking at the first sentence or two of this paragraph makes me laugh. it's crazy how much i think i have grown in these past three-ish months.
i don't want to say that i've grown up. i'm not sure about that. if i've been maturing in the same manner as the wine these people are so proud of matures. but i think, i've grown. and i think, i've figured out somethings about myself that were never brought to my attention living in the states. i've had to tap into a different set of coping skills. i've had to learn to adapt to something much greater than a new living situation or a new class. it's a completely different way of life over here. i feel myself changing just a little everyday.
today, as i was walking home, i thought for a minute that maybe i was "lost". not in the sense that i didn't know where i was going - my physical sense of direction is actually quite keen and my house is insanely easy to get to - but emotionally. not in the OH MY GOD I'M GOING NOWHERE AND WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH MY LIFE sense. but in the sense that coming over here has rattled my perception of, well, myself. and who i want to be. and where i want to be. i had a funny experience with scotland, where i felt the same way i did at MHC. i spent very little time there, and i knew that was where i wanted to be. i even took a peek at the application forms for graduate programs at st. andrews and univ. of edinburgh, although edinburgh has more programs that interest me, st. andrews has a social psych program that looks interesting enough but i'd like to do something applied or developmental or educational. edinburgh as 2 out of those 3. but i'm not thinking about that yet.
so yes. i'm feeling lost. not panicked. although i did call stimmer ranting and raving about absolutely nothing last night. but lost in a good sense. i've had my senses shaken and i'm starting to finally wake up to who i am. it may be a somewhat difficult and painful adventure, but i'm glad it's finally happening.
i'm also slipping into the role of teacher a little better. i had one student give me a card wishing me a "lately christmas". because belated is so not a word they would know. and i had three students draw me pictures today after they finished with their work in their books. it was cute.
i have nothing to do tomorrow and i am so excited to sleep. i have been running myself ragged, trying to enjoy every second of vacation. that just made me think of a calvin and hobbes strip where calvin in insistent on running around chasing down the last 2 days of summer. but i had an incredible vacation with very little rest, and the past couple nights i've been unable to sleep. although last night, once i did sleep, i didn't move until this morning when my alarm went off. i woke up holding my cellphone in my hand, and my sweatshirt was on the pillow next to my head. i must have just crashed once i got into bed. i may also be exhausted due to the fact my schedule has been changed around, and now monday is a 5 class day, tuesday is a 6 class day, and thursday is a 5 class day. but, in case you didn't notice, now i only work 3 days a week. i have a 3 day weekend, and wednesdays i can't work because the schools in france don't meet on wednesdays. or they only meet in the morning. it varies. the boy pictured above made a christmas card in class on the last day. they all did. but he was pretty awesome about it.
oh, and starz in their eyes just came on my itunes. this song makes me thing of scotland and the new year and stimmer and katie. oh, it makes me happy but gives me a big of a knot in the throat/chest thing. i like having these happy memories. i just hate for them to end.
in any case, i'm going to get going y'all.

well. it's been decided

i'm back in tours and i'm already planning the next time i can leave.
as of right now, that's tomorrow - a day trip to bordeaux with katie.
i start work again on monday, have four full weeks of work, and then my parents come visit for a few days. and yes, we will be leaving tours for a couple days to head off somewhere else, with the end of the trip in paris. next moment to leave will be my birthday.
since it falls on a friday this year, i'm thinking of switching my one friday morning class to thursday morning, giving myself a long weekend, and heading back up to edinburgh thursday night. ran this one by stimmer and this is the response i got:
come in the spring and it will be green and the days will be super long and you will sing proclaimer songs.
i see nothing wrong with that.
but yes christmas and new year's. i will now tell stories. katie and christine and i all meet up at CDG airport since christine had been in paris. flight is delayed for a couple hours which leads to mass toblerone consumption. see beautiful katie with toblerone. we then arrive in edinburgh, eat some food, and take a walk around the city at night. check out the christmas market and how they do them in scotland vs. france. katie gets a venison burger. she used to be a vegetarian too. what were we thinking? i get mulled wine. christine and katie see a shooting star, i'm too distracted by the skating rink. whoops! but really, i haven't gone ice skating in SO LONG. next day, we wake up, we head out, we start the tour. charismatic hilarious wonderful tour guides introduce us to various aspects of edinburgh - only city with a castle and a volcano. oooooooo put your excited faces on. william wallace monument was one of the first stops. although - it was pointed out that they have this super ugly fake tree cell towers, just like that super ugly cell tower on 89. so we trek up this hill to the monument, christine falls down on the way back down cause it's steep and slippery. we stop at kilmahog and meet hamish, one of the most famous hairy coos on the planet. ever. see right. what's up hamish. we check out dun castle, a statue of david sterling who was buddies with ian flemming (man who wrote james bond - dad - i know you're excited about that) loch lumnic (this is spelled wrong but i'm not completely versed in gaelic yet) the falls of dochar which are some of the most painted falls ever, check out a castle that we weren't supposed to check out with a beheading pit - i see that i have dunlarig underneath that in my journal - believe that's the name of it. dun means fort in gaelic. check out another loch, go to glen coe and learn about how the campbells massacred people and took advantage of the highland hospitality. stop for the night in inchree to sleep and mingle with the people. met a family of americans from malibu, and older scotsman who was on the trip because his son was one of the guides on the other bus, and a host of australians. day two - christmas eve - we check out inchree falls, quite beautiful, had a nice little chat with the guide about the holidays and the hogmany celebration i was going to for new year's with christine. head out to glen finnan - where bonny prince charlie landed, and there's an incredible view of water and mountains and sky, and the bridge used in the harry potter movies for the train. we head to fort william to grab food and spirits for the night in the castle, because they are not available in the castle - and what's a fun holiday in scotland without spirits? go to glen nevis and ben nevis - huge mountain, the mountain of gods, or "venomous one" translated into english. next stop - loch ness - and the hostel we stayed in that was right next to it. quite a beautiful area. day 3 - christmas day, we head up to loch garry - which looks like scotland! have a group photo taken. christine and katie and i are right in the middle. loch is behind us, obviously. we head to ileandonan castle - which is quite beautiful, and used in one of the james bond movies (yes, dad you can see that in the photo album). we pop up to the isle of skye to have a quick look at the remains of a viking castle that was inhabited by a woman named saucy mary. quite a long story with this one, but i'm realizing how long this post is, and will tell it at some other point. we come back for christmas dinner and hilarity ensues. that's all i have to say. it was a wonderful christmas. day 4 we head up to the castle, and to do so we drive up the length of loch ness. first sighting of nessie was in 565. that was quite a while ago. we head to colodden, where some intense battle action took place between england and scotland, and where they cleansed the highlands of their clans. banned gaelic. quite intense. you see how the battle was laid out and then you see the stones marking the buried bodies of the clans, and some that say "mixed clan" because people were torn apart and tossed in graves. *deep breath* head to the clava kirns, these huge burial grounds. quite cool. go up to inverness. make our way up to the castle for the night - carvisdale castle. has quite the marble collection, and secret passages. katie wandered around the outside of the castle looking for ghosts all night with a bunch of other people. day 5 was essentially a driving day. went to loch an eilan, heard a wonderful story about a man who got the nickname of "wolf", checked out the cathedral where he was buried, at last - everytime he was buried the cathedral went up in flames three days later, which went up into flames once they stopped praying that it wouldn't. so they rebuilt and pray every day. we land back in edinburgh around 5 at night. go back to christines and crash. next day, christine and katie and i do some shopping and whatnot, katie's on a mission to buy a kilt and i'm on a mission to find the jacket i wanted. head out for a few drinks at pubs for the night, meet some friends, enjoy ourselves. next day we go to the castle, check out the military museum, the crown jewels of scotland, go to the torchlight processional that they do here. everyone lines up by the old parliament and has a torch and parade down the streets to this recreation of athens they have here, light a boat on fire, and a deer, and celebrate the start of the new year's celebration - hogmany. head back into the town, crash at stimmer's again. next day, we were supposed to go on a ghost tour, but it was full, so we got lost in the pipe band processional before the ceilidh (traditional scottish dance - kind of like a barn dance). we head to jekyll and hyde, and the dome, for some pre dancing drinks, then head to get our dance on. what we found was a HUGE kareoke stage, and people singing ridiculousness. so we did that for a bit then had ourselves a good night's sleep. next day is new year's eve. we hang out, grab food in various places, go to the hogmany celebration. we had tickets into the ceilidh there, and we danced our way into the new year, with a huge fireworks display. it was quite magical. new year's day was spent watching movies, and going on a ghost tour of the city at night. then katie and i headed to the airport early in the morning. flew back here. and now i'm in france.
so, when my camera batter wasn't dead - i took pictures. i will now give you the links.
although - with the christmas day album, i will forewarn you, we had some christmas spirits. so i apologize in advance for any ridiculousness that you will see.
but take note of the beautiful country. cause it is beautiful.

links are:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034361&l=82362&id=10400438

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034362&l=c28c2&id=10400438

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034364&l=912a4&id=10400438

it was a fantastic and wonderful and silly time.
quite possibly one of my favorite trips of all time.
i think i may become a world traveler for the rest of my life. win big in the lotto and never have to do anything and just enjoy what's out there. yes indeed, i think that's what i'll do.
and if i like you well enough, well then i may just bring you with me.

you take the high road and i'll take the low road

and i'll be in scotland before you.
well it's a new year. i spent christmas and new year's in scotland with christine and katie.
i have not felt quite this sad about leaving somewhere other than home EVER.
it was an incredible time, trekking around the highlands for christmas, staying in a haunted castle for christmas, making new friends, exploring edinburgh, taking part in ceildghs (traditional scottish dancing), smiling and laughing more than i remember doing in a while.
right now, im running on little sleep, realizing i have to go back to work on monday, finding it hard to motivate to do anything work related, and i have loch lomond running through my head.
oh scotland. how fun and pretty and wonderful.
it's hard to sum it up in words.
i'll have pictures up soon.
love to you all