At the risk of jinxing myself, I think I survived my first train strike. Luckily, I didn’t really encounter any problems. A few people did. Apparently sometimes the strikes turn into a mess. And they happen somewhat often, so who knows what mess I will see in the future…

But the week has been boring. Work, school, babysitting.

Except at my school, things are always changing. Nobody showed up for my adult conversation class. So I BSed for two hours with a couple of the other teachers. And they are changing the way my classes are going. Instead of having 30 students twice a week for each class, I will have 15 students once a week. Which I think is better for the kids. There are some that really get the English, but those are also the students with an English speaking parent or something like that. I will get a chance to spend some time with the kids who don’t quite get it, and be able to help them out more.

Apparently this was caused by parent’s complaints. In the middle and high schools, the kids are in groups of 10-15 doing conversation English. The parent’s want the same for the little ones. And the district said ok. I guess there are a lot of things that happen like this. One of the teachers told me she didn’t like that they were doing that, because she likes sitting in with the class, and learning English as well. That was nice to hear.

Allison and I gave our presentation about Southern California in my Oral French class, which was actually really fun. People were mesmerized by our coolness. Or our sillyness. Allison talked a little bit about the Valley girl thing, and gave a little demonstration “Like, you know, like, oh my god, like…” and the teacher asked us to translate. Which was way more hilarious than just trying to speak like a valley girl. Because the French word for “like” is “comme” (pronounced like “come”). So here we were, saying “comme, comme, tu sais?, comme, mon dieu, comme…” it was kind of hard for me to keep a straight face. And then one of the girls from NorCal in the back was trying to help, and she said “beaucoup de comme”. I almost lost it.

Now I have to just convince myself to keep going to that class. There are only two factors in my grade for the class. The first is my presentation, and that is now done. The second is my final exam, which will be about a book that we aren’t even going over in class. The teacher doesn’t even take attendance. But I am going to try to be good. It’s just hard when it is my only class on Tuesday and Thursday.

The weather has been strange. It got friggin cold. One morning on my way to work, the temperature was just 35 degrees. Yikes.

And then it became beautiful. The days are sunny. A little on the cool side, in the high 50s.

The meteo said that there was supposed to be rain all week. And I said I think not. I find it hilarious that there hasn’t been any rain. Once again contributing to my theory.

And I’ve been splurging on food. Mmmm.

This week, while I was doing my laundry, I decided to go to my local bakery and get lunch. I had a piece of Quiche Lorraine, and a brownie. I swear I felt my eyes roll back in my head. One morning when I went to school, I went to the bakery there, and had a pain au chocolat. Fresh from the oven. I love French food.

And I am in love. With Gunther. If you have no idea what I am talking about, go to www.gunthernet.com. I always have had this strange fascination for uber-cheesy things, and Gunther definitely does it for me. Amanda first introduced me to Gunther when we first got here, and he just keeps getting more awesome the more I check him out.