Il faut que je get my revenge on BTS...

It's Tuesday again!

I got better last week, yippp! But not until Saturday. Gross. Thursday at school made up for Shit Tuesday. The twins brought in 'Inception' on DVD for me to borrow - "we are little angels" yes, yes you are, you disconcertingly sweet 17 year olds - and a guy from a Terminale class gave me a portrait of himself to keep as a 'memoir'. Okaaaaay, thanks mate...

Thursday night failed. Mike and I, still too ill to move, attempted to have a film/pizza night. This lasted for a steady half hour before we looked at each other and went 'nah' then crawled back into our beds. This was at around 7.45pm. Tragic doesn't even cut it. Friday night I was also in, but so was Emma aka the best ginger person in the world, so she gave me a cheeky call from Landan and made my life better.

DEJ (Rachael) came back from Glasgow on Saturday night, so the two of us celebrated by getting pissed with Frenchies :) We spoke lots and lots of French like we're meant to, recieved a bit of abuse from the locals and got drunk. Standard 'night out' in Clermont, then. Contrary to earlier expectations, Pauline, Dej and I were the last ones standing. Hell, we were the only 3 out of about 10 people who even made it out. Heros. Hmm... We did some drinkin' and we did some dancin'. More than one guy smelt my hair though. Eew. And creepy dancing/grinding girl (yes, girl. That throws a few gender stereotypes out la fenêtre) kept popping up to say hi. Cos tonight babeh, I wanna get FREAKY WITH YOU. The night ended with Pauline screaming "va te faire FOUTRE, SERIOUSEMENT" (google it English peopolz) at a guy who was being mean. Au fait, he was being a bit of a xenophobic prick, if I'm honest. Nothing we're not already used to, but ma petite Pauline is quite protective of her anglaises and Dej l'écossaise. The two of us then had a drunken discussion about life etc in the street (deep) before being sent home by a random guy who 'feared for our safety' on 'the STREETS of Clermont'.

Dear Clermont-Ferrand,
Why are you so weird? You're lucky we've been getting on a bit better, lately.
A fair amount of love, Lauryn.

Obviously no one was in any fit state to move anywhere the next day.

Monday was alreet, y'know? Bit boring by most people's standards, I'd say. Although, the annoying, bitchy (I'm gonna talk over the teacher for an hour to see how far I can push her then give her my best don't walk home alone tonight smile when she starts getting pissed off) girls in my Terminale STG class behaved accordingly and even produced a decent bit of work. Couldn't tell you how or why that happened, but it did! Also, the tables have turned in my life, for it is now me explaining 'il faut que' (in English, obv). Judge me if you will, but until I got to Franco and realised that no one ever uses the subjunctive with it anyway, I would physically flee from its presence! But anyway, we're good now. I felt powerful. Take that, Godard!!

Today (Tuesday) I decided to subject my students to the horrors of THE most boring article on the Royal Wedding I could POSSIBLY find, as my own personal form of punishment for last Tuesday. Muhahaha. However, it went down quite well with the first lesson (Terminale). I made things a bit more interesting for this class as they're not awful people, just a bunch of boring know-it-alls who sometimes go out of their way to try to prove that I'm an idiot who only listens to pop music and knows nothing of the world. Like this morning, for example. I was always under the impression that France hasn't had a monarchy for the past couple of hundred years, at least. I know this is their country, but I'm still completely sure I'm right on this one lol. Now, I'm not sure if this was just misinterpreted or if this guy was trying to catch me out (I strongly suspect the latter). I said, right, 'If there was a monarchy in France...' as in NOW, not as in 'if there had been'. The hand of El Presidente of the Priory of Know It All shot up... *snigger* 'Errr this is the case'. Me: *Shit* *Very confused* *Oh no...* *Fuck how is there a modern day French monarchy I know nothing about?* Errr.. Yeahyeah I know but... What I meeeean is.. If they were of the err the same err status as England's monarchy today...' I thought that was an ok-pretty decent save, considering how thrown I was! Could have been worse. I promtly got my embarrassed ass on Google and texted my Historian housemate in London to check haha. Bloody kids...

Had my first proper lesson with the second year BTS today. Was quite nervous before, as some of them are nearing the retirement age (not really but they are a fair bit older than me!), but it went really well! They've been on proper work experience for the past 2 months where they've actually had some responsabilities and have had to communicate with people on a professional level, so they are more mature than the first years by about 3 and a half miles.We attempted to discuss their work experience for about 20 mins (their English is appalling but, not to worry, Auntie Laurie will sort it out!) then did the article/debate thang which they got really into. They ended up arguing in French inbetween their points in 'English' in order to fully express themselves to one another, which was hilarious to listen to and also made me think that they cared :)

Ooooooooh BTS year 1 were notttttttt happy, though! Tehehehehehe! The article had the desired effect, so kudos to that Guardian journalist! They blatently knew what I was doing, and I knew they knew that I knew haha... It was one of those entertaining situations. It was actually torture for them as all of our classes have been really laid back so far and I've gone out of my way to make them different from their normal English classes, which I happen to know are heinously dull for BTS students. Not today, folks! But no one complained, they just looked sad and got on with it. Clearly the bollocking worked. I was laiden with dirty looks from the girls for the duration of the hour and around school, but that just made me happier :) I know I know I know I'm mean, but they were nearly the end of me last week, I swear!

Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to Paris! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and I'm looking forward to spending a weekend in a place where people expect foreigners to be. I imagine it will feel quite refreshing not to be glared at like I'm the lovechild of Margaret Thatcher and Hitler every time my dirty English accent is heard.