Walking, Talking: Day 8

I talked about school in Australia all day today. Four classes of it.

Olivier's prepatoire do not understand the TQA and that we do not have to continue to study languages or subjects we don't like and we can still go to university. They do not understand how Adventure Recreation is a class and that most Australians have part time jobs from age 15.

I accidentally made a class believe that all Australian schools are on the beach and that we never go to school. They wrote a short piece at the end of the class that about whether they thought it was better to be a student in Australia or in France; 100% said Australia. I read some, including a gorgeous one which thanked me for taking the class and for being here. The students are amazing, so many truly are thankful that I have come so far. They really don't understand when I say how much I love the school and that I think the schools give a better education. They learn so fast and so much. Their whole lives are about school, however, about their futures.

Met Marie, Pascal and Jean-Phillipe, other English teachers. And Theo, a German teacher who lived in Melbourne for a while playing jazz and opening some acts for the John Butler Trio (yeah, who saw that coming).

Class, I think, will be great. With Olivier's classes, I will have one late hour, it will be voluntary, slected from the kids in each of his four classes. With others, I don't know yet, I haven't met some of the teachers, have only had class with three of them, but so far it has been wonderful.

That afternoon, Jean-Phillipe drove me to the city centre and dropped me there so I could wander once more. Found this in a supermarket, amazing wine, costs next to nothing:

And discovered that the walk to school is relatively easy. Olivier finished at 6, so I met him back at school and we headed home. This weekend he and Estelle are going away for Saturday night, so Marie-Lawrence and her husband, Joseph are coming to stay. I was exhausted, beyond exhausted. The don't eat until late late late here. That's something I have been struggling with. They have lunch at 1 and then don't eat again until dinner, which is normally 8pm, 9pm, can be 10pm. We ate that night at 10:30. Crazy time. I was nodding off at the table, couldn't even speak English to Olivier, let alone French to the others. The children ate with us and were lively and crazy, all five of them. I honestly don't know how they do it. French people do not sleep.