Je joue la montre!

Wow...so I haven't posted in a long time it seems. Well nothing too exciting has happened here lately except these things....

The teachers union had a strike yesterday. Quelle suprise. I can't expect to get out of france without having lived through one strike. Since these things happen frequently not all teachers participate. It actually funny because the school seemed to function like normal except for a few teachers missing. I gather they are upset about the suppression of job posts for the next year. France is suffering just as much as the US in term of the economic downfall and the governement is merging classes and limiting funds to schools. I directly see this in that I am only allowed to make 300 copies a year for my students. i.e. I don't make copies. The teachers here don't seem to care much because we are lozere, the forgotten dept in France. I kind of like that we are forgotten because governement politics make me uncomfortable when I have no stake in them.

I've come down with a cold this week and still the kids gave me ne reprieve or niceities. I hardly expected it but all the same my congested head made it hard to understand and focus in class. I wasn't sick enough to take time off but at the same time I wasn't 100%. The pharmacist gave me some great pills to ease the effects and they worked like a charm because I am good enough to go to the gym tonight.

Update on my magnets: I have 31 departments with 4 doubles to far that I hope to trade with a fellow teacher. I doubt I'll get all 100 but a semi complete map would be amazing.

I learned a cool expression today. "Je joue la montre." which literally means that I'm playing the watch or in our terms 'I'm stalling'. ( It can be used during sports or other things) I learned this for two reasons that are quite funny and french :
1. I am stalling with the MGEN, assurance company for my card. I don't care because I have my papers that work just a good as the card and they want me to do all the extra expensive stuff when I only have 3 more months here. Alas, I've been purposly pretending I don't understand and sending in paper work that will either work or be sent back which takes time. This is a very french thing to do and I'm adopting the local custom.
2. The spanish teacher was explaining to me that the assistant leaves same time as me but having the video conferencing with him is not going to work nor does she really want to waste class time doing it so alas she is stalling for when he leaves too. (This was ok with the headmaster anyways) This I understand because she only found out a few days before xmas break and its such a big thing to organize that she's just forgetting it for this year.

I love this expression!

Bisous