Mal du pays

Felt homesick today. And exhausted. The latter probably from the lack of sleep, the former...probably because of yesterday's Christmas shopping, and also because all my university friends are finishing to go home for Christmas. It doesn't seem fair in a way that I still have two weeks left, and probably need my family more than them!

Probably didn't help that I had a very early start...my one hour in school on a Thursday starts just after the sun has risen at the moment! Had a very hurried departure from chez moi as I had accidentally gone back to sleep after my alarm, and woken up just as I would have normally had to leave the house. Luckily the trams were in my favour and I got into school with 10 minutes to spare, just enough time to print out my worksheet that I was doing with the quatrième INTER. Somehow luck really was on my side as I managed to connect my laptop to the internet, the projector and everything worked to load the film that I was working on with the students! Having something go right really cheered me up, as did the students...who are so enthusiastic, as ever! As this was the first time they had seen the film, I set them a wordsearch with all the names of the characters, and they had to label and name the characters after we'd watched 15 minutes of the film. I was worried that they wouldn't be able to find anything, but they all did really really well and I was so impressed. And I think they are enjoying the film, as they asked me to continue with the film rather than do Christmas songs for the last lesson of term in two weeks!

The rest of my daytime was spent catching up on lost sleep and chores that have been piling up for a few days about a week. My evening, however, was slightly more productive! I met up with the gang, with all of us finally together! It's been too long. So the first two hours of the evening were spent at Tour Solidor, for German conversation. And the photograph is of Pawel, looking slightly moody...but it is one of the first times I have taken a photograph of him where he is not pulling a silly face, so I thought I better document it! Luckily (as I speak not one word of German!), a few of us spoke in a mixture of French and English! Listening to the German language though, I found it quite graceful; I guess you just always think of people shouting in German rather than conversation. As I understand not one word of German, when I listened in I pretty much made up conversations in my head about what they were saying based on expression. A pretty fun game actually! The one phrase that I remember:-

Ich habe immer Recht
I am always right

The German theme continued at L'Ecume des Nuits, where we arrived for the German themed party! German food, beer and music...what's not to like! Chatted with Nicolas for a bit about photography, and ran into Dana and had a little catch-up (it's so strange, it felt like I hadn't seen her for ages when it was only yesterday!). Glad I didn't stay out too late, as I think I still need to catch up on sleep...