Tuesday thoughts from a Guest Blogger

Well it has been a couple of weeks since I brought forth my perspective on our time here so here goes.

Life without a car: It has been exactly 25 years since I haven't had my own vehicle. This hasn't been as hard as one would imagine with the location of our apartment. We have documented our convenient location and a car is definitely not necessary. There is the odd time that we have ventured out to the suburbs of Avignon to bear witness to the driving culture that we have left at home. Our Saturday afternoon trip to France's newest (and largest!) IKEA was one such excursion. Finding a taxi to bring home our Swedish treasures was no easy task.

Another Saturday trip found us 10 km from the center of town searching for the circus. As it was Saturday the bus didn't go to our destination which made for a 15 minute walk. We arrived at the circus tents only to find that the only way in was through the car entrance on the far side of the field (think huge drive in theatre with the entrance as far away from you as possible). We were in luck though as a locked gate had been bent to allow one to sneak in from our position. Through the opening slipped Grace, Lily, and Ginger. They were quickly followed by a father and son. It was then my turn. With various directions from Ginger (you need to go a little lower, bend that way etc.), I tried to force my way through the gate while mulling over the prospect of becoming part of the circus. "The one-legged guy stuck in the gate" act was not that appealing to me and I decided not to force it but instead take the long way around. I guess I have been enjoying french bread a little too much.

The circus was a bit old school with the girls enjoying the dancing tigers and balancing elephants.

Lost in Translation: I always like to get a haircut to feel comfortable in a new environment. I had my first french haircut about two weeks ago. I made sure that I was asking for my hair to be cut and not my horse but it did not go exactly to plan. I described how I wanted the sides cut short leaving most of the length on the top. Pas de problem! In life I have discovered that you really do get what you pay for as my 10 euro cut involved a #3 razor and my head. Instead of a nicely coiffed hairdo, I left the coiffeurs with the same cut he had no doubt performed around 20 times that day. Not a full buzz cut but certainly an Avignon special. 10 years ago this would have been quite the traumatic event for me with little chance of recovery but I have decided that looking like my brother Paul is not such a bad thing.

Life as a student: Transitioning from teacher to student has been pretty seamless and I do enjoy the life of a student. We have more homework than is ideal but it is definitely manageable. There is the odd time that I do question why I have given up the front of the class for a seat as a student. Yesterday was certainly one of those days. I have always prided myself on being laid back and overall a pretty calm, relaxed individual. Truth be told I have a bit of a temper that rears its ugly head every so often. We were sitting in the computer lab working away at some on-line worksheets. I was fine with the first couple but then ran into a snag with the third one. The snag was that the exercise was one that involved a grammatical rule that I didn't remember being taught thus far. When I asked the teacher if we had done it before, she replied "I don't know if you have done it before". She then proceeded to explain it in a fashion that didn't really work for me. No problem I thought, I'll just skip to the next one and learn the rule at home. It quickly became a problem for me as I was unable to skip to the next assignment. When I pointed this out to the teacher all I got from her was "that's strange". I was becoming quite frustrated and released an exasperated sigh. She then asked me if I knew the french expression for "sigh". I think that she could tell by the look on my face that I was searching for a different expression. After a couple of more attempts, I packed up my books, pushed in my keyboard and with my 17 classmates all looking at me I grunted something about doing the work chez moi and high tailed it out of class. It was certainly not one of my more mature moments but good for a laugh upon reflection.

Connections: It really is amazing how connected I feel to the people at home. Your emails and comments on line bring real joy to my day. Even though we are halfway around the world we still feel part of the community that we have left for the year. Thank you all for your best wishes and thoughts that you send our way. We appreciate it more than you can know.