Because I have Decided to be a Student...

Because I have decided to be a student, things have been much more complicated - and much less fun. On the 3rd of October (yes, I did a lot of things that day...), I had to fill a document to send to Nanterre which said: " I, undersigned Julie, something something something, want to study civilization with missus *********, literature with missus **********, translation, phonology, grammar, theatre, oral and all that stuff in Nanterre, etc etc". I emailed it to our dear secretary, praying, crossing my fingers she would register me as a student in Master 1. To be sure I won't be forgotten, I also emailed all the professors whose lessons I will study. Two of them, the professors of grammar and translation, answered nearly as soon as I emailed them. One of them answered me only when I told her "Missus ********** gave me your email address because I think you didn't receive the previous mails I sent you" ( she did receive them... no comment), and another one answered a month and a half later, to tell me that " this lesson cannot be studied if you're not at University!!!" Well, thank you miss, you answered so quickly that now, it's too late for me to follow another lesson. You B****...

In this case, when you don't have support from the professors, you have to have friends. Really good friends. The kind of friends who will scan all their sheets to send you the lessons (thank you Caro, Aurélia, Aurélie, Hélène, Aziz, Nathalie, Gwen, Marion...). Thanks to them, I could enjoy the lovely fact of studying in England. I wanted to do my best. I wanted to succeed. I wanted to pass this year not to waste time ( though this year in England was not a waste of time at all). Missus B****** sent me all the texts I had to translate, I went to the Watergate in Durham to order several books for literature and theatre, I brought my netbook with me at school to work during breaks, and to revise as well. I worked all day, I studied all evening. I was SERIOUS! The only problem was civilization, I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do...

When December came, I didn't know what I had to do. One of the professors said that we (the assistants) could stay in England and have our exams in September. Another one said we had better to come to university in January, have our exams, so that we could resit it in September. Because I was not sure what to expect from exams, I decided, and I was not the only one, to come back to France in January. The headteacher agreed that I leave school for two weeks, I would only have to work on Fridays when I would come back. Nick, you rock!

Yes, my room looks like a library...




With Nath and Gwen, we had almost the same exams. We were together through the highs and lows... Such as when we had to get our exam of phonology. None of us knew what it was about, and the professor in charge of it never answered our emails. We knew what it consisted in the night before. We all passed it! :-D
Concerning civilization, well... Because I didn't have the documents to learn, I revised monarchy and royalty in England between 1509 and 1901. The subject was " unemployment of children in Northern England between 1680 and 1820" ===> OK! (No surprise, I didn't get a really good mark for that one...)
For the other lessons, though I expected good marks, I did better. Not that good, but better. It was just hard to enjoy a novel which deals with pedophilia and necrophilia (thank you Angela Carter). I need to tell you something that happened at the end of my exam of literature: I told the professor "Miss, I need to ask you something. I wanted to use the word "threesome" in my essay, but I think it's a bit rude" ans she answered "No No, that's fine, you can use this word". When I came back to Bishop Auckland, I asked Chris if I really could use that word, to which he answered " Noooooo! You can use that word with friends, but don't say it again in this school!" Ok, so, to be clear, I was right not to use it in my essay, though Miss IknowEnglishBetterThanYouForIamTheTeacher said I could... I'm disgusted I am judged by people who don't know anything about slang. So what else miss, you think a blue waffle is something you can buy in a bakery??? Silly thing...

Time went by, and the next session of exams was at the beginning of June. I'm waiting for the results. I hope I pass! I worked a lot on Shakespeare ( I read Henry V and Richard III several times, I watched the movies, I searched a lot of documents about it... cross my fingers!) and now, as you are reading me, I have to write a "mémoire" ( around 60 pages) of what I did this year - of course I won't write the same things I write here, I rather have to write my educational project as I want to be a teacher.

So, I spent my days at school and my evenings studying. However, I chose not to work on weekends. After all, I was there only for 9 months, I wanted to take the most of it and discover England!

Real first day - after school

My first day at school has been long and "riche en émotions", for I had to meet everybody, start the work with 4 different classes and remember the name of the students... If at first I was ashamed I couldn't remember everything, at the end of the year, I still didn't know some names and some members of staff - but they didn't know my name as well! Moreover, I was the first French assistant to work in this school. I was a kind of "novelty". One of my friends confessed, during the last evening I spent in England, that the first month I was at school, he didn't know what I was there for...


First French assistant indeed, that's the reason why I wanted to show the people in charge of assistantship in county Durham that I fitted the job. " Your first mission, if you accept it" was to go to a meeting organised in Newcastle, in a university. The only time I had been to Newcastle before was... when I arrived at the airport. Nothing else. After school, Anna told me how to go to Newcastle, and which directions to take from the train station to find the university. Take the bus from Bishop Auckland, go to Durham, take the train to Newcastle, find this street, go right, ...
Well, I had been to Durham by car, I didn't know where the train station was, and I must admit I was afraid to take the train, alone, for the first time... And my feet were crying for mercy in my high heels shoes.


Step one: school- bus station. Easy, I would have to do this every week-day then. Relief: the bus I usually takes goes to Newcastle :-D and as I'm childish, I sat on the front seat of the upper deck. It may seem silly for you, English readers, but for a French girl like me, it's really exciting! And let me tell you my boyfriend was really excited too about sitting in a double decker bus when we met in London!

Let's go to Newcastle. Two hours. I enjoy travelling in general, and then I had my eyes wide open. You see thing differently when you are in the upper deck of a bus. I saw Durham's Cathedral and the castle, Chester-le-street and its shopping center, the Angel of the North, Gateshead and Newcastle.

When I finally arrived in Newcastle, I read the note Anna left me with the directions I should take to find the university. Well... She gave me the directions from the train station, not from the bus station. So, I did as I usually do when I have to find a place: I walked. I saw Haymarket, Monument, the main street with all the shops, stopped to ask two guys where the university was ( "which one?" " what, d'you mean there is more than one in Newcastle?" "yep" "well... the one with a building called Henry V"), stopped again to ask my way to a policeman, stopped once more to check if my feet were still alive, crossed the road, followed a few Chinese girls... who were actually going to the university I was looking for. YES :D

I only had five minutes to find the room. The meeting was taking place in the building Henry V, which was the first building on the left. Easy to find. The room was well indicated, with lots of signs on the walls. When I arrived, I was:

- relieved

- bright pink

- sweating

- thirsty

-on time!

I was offered a glass of wine, sat down and waited for the meeting to start. A lot of foreign language assistants were there with their mentor or their roommate with whom they work at school. I was alone. A girl came and talk to me, Heike, a German language assisatnt in Hartlepool. She was living with her roommate Marion and they were here with another French guy. That guy scared me when he told he had to call his mother about his CRB check, documents for school and NHS... I had nothing of all this. I just wanted him to stop freaking me out! As if I was not nervous already...

The meeting started. The man talked about school and introduced some teachers. It lasted ten minutes. Then, we were told that around Newcastle, the accent is quite difficult to understand, and the vocabulary used is not proper English. NO, REALLY??? o_O what a surprised ><"

He made us repeat the sentence " She sells seashells by the seashore" and told us the world "hinny" stands for "honey" in Geordie. Then, he asked us to leave our internet address to be warned for next meetings. That's all. I spent two hours in a bus, half an hour in the streets with feet on fire for, let's say, a meeting which lasted half an hour, and I had to spend two other hours on the bus to go back home...

I felt like I wasted my time at this meeting - at least, the school had a proof that I was involved. Nevertheless, right after the meeting, I exchanged phone numbers and face book details with Marion. I didn't know it yet, but she was about to become my friend - and a very good friend :)

Real first day - daytime

Monday, 3rd of October 2011, first day at school. Remember, in a previous article I told you I spent the previous night out. So, when I woke up… God, my ears...

Nevermind. I had to be in the best shape I had never been. After all, I was going to meet around 200 pupils this week, and all the members of staff. Eye of the Tiger. I remembered what Anna told me about the dress code: “something smart, but casual”. Grey trousers, purple top, high heels…  make up ( or “how a girl can feel more confident behind chemical stuff”).Really, though I met Anna before,  I was so so so nervous :s.

That stupid nervosity increased when I reached the bus stop. Not that I was scared I could miss the bus or take one which didn’t go to Bishop, nooooooooooo. I’m not that silly, I can read timetable. No, what scared me was black, maroon, about 1,60meter tall and talkative… Children! Yes, during a year, I had to wait for the bus with students of Saint John’s catholic school (even if, trust me or not, the kind of things they discussed of were not very catholic…).

Bishop Auckland, bus station. Only after a while I found out it was better for me to stop in the town center to be on time… But I have never been late at school (indeed, I can run quite well with high heels).

At school, I discovered how it works. Blue badge for members of staff like teachers, green badge for 6^th forms, red badge for teaching assistants and visitors. Sign in in the morning, sign out when you leave school. I wondered if they sold maps of the school at the office, and I thought I could look stupid if I asked one. I looked around me for a sign with “French class: this way” written on it, but couldn’t find it. I decided to stay next to the office for a while, until I saw someone I recognized and that I could follow. Yeah, that’s clever, I know J

I didn’t know my timetable but heart then. I only knew who I had to work with (Anna, Janet, Anna, Anna on Monday), but not the classes I would meet. Anna was reassuring and explained me everything. The first class was the year 8A. 12 or 13 years old, good level. Anna asked me to introduce myself, in French, to the class. They didn’t understand. So, I did it in English, and then they asked me a lot of questions. I was expected something like “what did you do/study to work here?”, “Is it hard to move far from home?” but what they asked was more… well, it was different. I had to answer questions such as “ have you ever been to Disneyland Paris?”, “Do you eat snails?” ( I did when I was a kid, until I discovered what it actually was… Hey, don’t look disgusted, I’m French!), “ Do you eat frog legs?” No, but I used them for science, “Do you live in England?” No, I’m so rich I take the plane everyday honey ><”

They all asked the same kind of question. On Thursday, Thomas, Year7A, asked if I had children… At least, it was different from the other questions.

During the first week, when I met the students/children, they all look lovely (except for some year 11… Ha, teenagers!) though some of them tried to make friends with me ( which was useless because I was not the one who would mark their work hihi). Lovely indeed, but it was only the beginning…