A lot has changed in a month!

Wow. A lot has happened since my first post. I guess the best way to go about updating on my life is to make a brief timeline.

September 20- The day I had been waiting for for months. I left for France.

September 21- Arrived in Paris, took a train to Strasbourg. My roommate Sarah picked me up and we (along with all my luggage) took the tram to our apartment. She showed me around the apartment and our room and I freaked out. Why did I EVER think moving to France was a good idea?? Wanted to go home. Badly. Eventually met our other roommate Chrissy and went out and met some other assistants. Liked everyone a lot and had fun but was still miserable. Also jetlagged.

September 24-27- Both of my roommates went out of town for the weekend. I anticipated a miserable weekend at home, internet-less and friendless. Instead, I spent a lot of time with other assistants and was never home. Started to feel much better about moving to France.

September 30- took a day trip to the Black Forest in Germany with some other assistants. Had fun. Ate cake.

October 1- first day of work at my lycee. It was fine...first of MANY sessions of "Ask the English assistant whatever you want". As expected (since it's a technical/professional school), almost all of the students are boys, which kind of changes the classroom dynamics. Overall, they seem like really good kids and I'm looking forward to working with them.

October 1-3- went to Stuttgart, Germany to celebrate the Volksfest, which is basically like Stuttgart's version of Oktoberfest. It was a LOT of fun. In addition to drinking 3 liters of beer and dancing and singing on tables, we visited an Army base and hung out with Chrissy's parents and aunt and uncle, who are awesome.

October 4-present- Continued working at the lycee a little and hanging out with friends a lot. I love many of the other assistants already and I feel like I've known them for much longer than three weeks!! Worked on planning our epic Toussaint adventure to Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Prague.

So that's pretty much my life right now! In the three weeks I've been in France, I've fallen in love with a beautiful city, become friends with some awesome people, and started a new job.

I'll try to update more often...once a week hopefully. Tchao!

So, I'm moving to France next week...

!!!!!  My departure date is drawing near, so I figured it's about time to start a blog.

Background, for those of you who don't know me:
I'm from Dallas, TX and just turned 24. In college I majored in French and Psychology, and got my Master's in Teaching as well. While I was in college I spent a summer interning at a primary school in London and a semester "studying" abroad in Grenoble. Note the quotation marks...I didn't study much but traveled a ton and had the time of my life. I spent the 09-10 year teaching high school French in the Dallas area (shoutout to my IHS kids). I love my students and teaching, but I wasn't happy with other parts of my job and started feeling restless. On New Year's Day, out of nowhere I randomly decided to apply for the TAPIF program. I was accepted in early April, told my school and students I wasn't coming back the next year, and now here I am!

I was assigned to a lycee (high school) and a college (middle school) in Strasbourg, which was my first choice area. I haven't really heard anything negative about Strasbourg--it's beautiful, it's full of students, the EU Parliament is there, it has amazing Christmas markets....what's not to love? I'll put up pictures when I'm actually there, but you should google it right now...it's awesome. PLUS it's basically smack in the middle of Europe, so I'm looking forward to traveling all over during school breaks. My job seems pretty sweet too...I'll be an English teaching assistant, so not even a real teacher. That could get frustrating since I'm used to having my own classes, but it's okay since I'll only be working 12 hours a week (!!!) with 8 weeks or so of vacation in 7 months (!!!). I have been in contact with the former assistant at my schools and he had a not-so-great experience, but he has been awesome about answering all of my questions and helping with everything I need. The teachers I will be working with in France also seem really nice, so I hope the students will be cool, too. I am definitely a little nervous about teaching French kids.

So yeah, 1 week! I am so excited and happy to be going. I have been keeping busy shopping and packing and hanging out with the people (and dog) I love. I also spend wayyyy too much time on facebook and an online forum for assistants, in addition to lurking on other assistants' blogs :) I can't wait to move into my apartment and meet the other assistants from my town---everyone seems really cool and fun. I'll post again soon...feel free to leave comments (you don't have to be a member or anything) or follow me, or whatever you do with blogs. :)