Lundi le 22 septembre
Another Monday, they seem to come around fairly quickly. Off to class – Went and collected some books that I had ordered at lunchtime -.home again! Wendy had arrived back from down south – finally someone to talk to – haven’t heard from anyone (apart from dear friends in NZ) at all here!
Tea with someone else – a miracle!
Mardi le 23 septembre
The phone call from home was upsetting this morning – Nev informed me that Seph had chipped her front tooth quite badly and what should he do! Ring the Dentist ASAP! Teeth are so precious and it saddened me to think that for the rest of her life she had a damaged front tooth!
This morning the professeur – Marie-Paul Benoit, who we have had for Mon-Wed for 4 weeks wouldn’t be teaching after midi today and we would have a reliever. She explained that she had worked too much and that instead of finishing at the end of the Wednesday she had to finish lunch Tuesday. I thought that she must have been paid for certain hours for the course and as someone had been sick she had done extras then so that was it. Strange!
The reliever this afternoon explained it a bit clearer and I finally picked up that she was retiring!
In France a calculation is done somehow but you have to work for 40 years, so retirement can be anywhere between 60 and 65. But, if you haven’t worked 40 years and you turn 65 – that is it! It takes into account years of training and for women child rearing. Then somehow they work out exactly when you can finish. As it turns out she was supposed to finish at 12:00 – but she stayed till end of class at 12:30!
How bizarre – nothing so rigid in N.Z., imagine not finishing the term or finishing 1 day before the course / school finished for term! I think of what N.Z. teachers do and find the workload incredible compared to here. Also the wages don’t reflect the work we do either!
Time for the Ministry to wake up and start paying international rates or more and more young teachers do their 2 years and take off.
Got called to the secretary today – they haven’t received payment yet for my course from AFS – I finish on Friday – and I won’t get my attestation or be allowed to enrol again! Spent lunch composing email to AFS NZ to find out what is happening and reading emails from my very close friends, dear to my heart and who I miss terribly – those emails keep me going and it is just if I was there – PLEASE keep them coming, don’t slack off!
According to the kids at home - 6 more sleeps, but for me a bit longer – 9 sleeps! Single digits – didn’t realise it would be so hard, probably worse for them – maybe not sure, at least they are all together!
Cost of things here are certainly are not cheap – eg. A towel, only have 1 here, so thought I’d buy an extra, 17€ the cheapest, which is about $38, it stayed on the shelf, couldn’t justify it! Most things are Euros for dollars eg A sandwich is 3€50 / 4€ but if you convert it is horrible!
I have spent a fair amount of time going back through all the photos on the computer and naming them and sorting into decent files/ folders. Seeing the kids so little again brings a smile to my face as I have not looked at them really for ages. A job I hope to have done by the time the kids arrived otherwise might sit like that again for 5 years!
I wonder how the end of term is going – haven’t heard anything from the class – can’t be too badly missed, either that or far too busy working hard – will go for the latter!
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