Majorly needed update

Hello dear friends,

I am sorry for the serious lack of posting recently-- I have begun teaching, the administrative process has struck again, and Orange (more in a moment) has bitten us in the butts.  Oh, and I have a raving social life... jk.

So first, teaching: I feel a little bit like things are happening very fast and I don't know much about what is going on.  It's not like anyone is explaining things complicated-ly; it's more like no one explains anything at all.  For example, our vacations are written Oct 23-Nov 5.  Apparently, this means you come back to class on Nov 5, not that your last day of vacation is on Nov 5 and you resume on the 6th.  But I've only heard this through my roommates, and not through anything official, but now I've looked it up, and it's true.  WTF.  So now I'll be missing a day due to the fact that I wasn't told about how the schedule worked (I'll be in Germany still).  But what can you do?  Otherwise, though, I love teaching.  I feel a little awkward in class, because I just kind of do what the teacher wants me to, at this point, but soon I will be taking some kids to work in another room, etc.  I'm looking forward to developing my own lesson plans. 

Cute stories that have happened so far:
-They usually ask if I have a boyfriend, and when I say yes, they all (literally, ALL) go "ooooohhhhhhhhh!"
-One girl, when I showed a picture of my senior prom group, said "Oh, elle est en bonne forme!"  The teacher said, "In English, please!"  And the girl goes, "Euh... she 'as .... euh, a good figure!"  And I blushed a lot.
-I spent about 30 minutes describing my life to a class, complete with pictures.  I told them that we have a lot of corn, showed pictures of The Bean in Chicago; I described Meijer's sheer size to them, I showed pictures of my 96 year old great grandmother... I asked one boy, "What is one thing that you learned today, or one thing that was interesting to you?"  He replied, "I learned nothing."  :)
-Today, in class, I was sitting at a table with one of the students who is very good at English.  The kids were giving presentations on famous quotations, and this kid (who seems very... nice and polite) was mumbling under his breath, in English, about the faults of each person.  But not their faults in English, no.  Their faults as a person -- like, "Oh, 'e nehver prepares, I don't uhgree wiz 'iz assessmunt."  I had to work hard not to laugh (or agree!) because I think he's a little funny.

Anyways, enough of that.  I need to do a lesson plan for some classes for tomorrow, so I should go, but basically my life has otherwise consisted of dealing with Orange, the phone company that we were required (by our school) to take out an internet contract from.  They have screwed us over royally, charging us up the wazoo for things they said they would not charge, billing us earlier than they said they would, and (get this) giving us a different, and more expensive plan, than we signed up for.  I am so upset by this, and we have been fighting it to no end.  They have conceded to reimburse us 60 euros, which is something, but... not much compared to how much they're demanding of us.  OUCH.

And finally, I have been trying to plan a birthday for me and my roomie Xiao Lu.  Her birthday is tomorrow (!) and mine is on Friday (!) so we're having a joint b-day party on Friday night with some assistants.  It should be fun, I'm thinking.  I'm going to try to make a cake; we'll see how it goes, with the few cooking utensils I have here, and the modified ingredients I have to use. 

OK, off to plan a lesson on American high school stereotypes (goth, nerd, jock, band geek, prep, artsy kid, etc.).  And then get some other lessons ready because WHO KNOWS what I'm going to do in my other classes.  On verra...