Rimouski and Fredericton [28th of Sept - 6th of Oct]

Hello beautiful people out there.

Sorry for not having been more keen about blogging in the past couple of weeks but it's been busy busy busy!!

Anyway, school is still going well as usual, students are not behaving QUITE as well as before and I so I think I need to step up the "teacher act" a little more but all in all, things are good.

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was this crazy weekend I had last week!

Friday night we went to our first ice hockey game in Rimouski!

What a night - Rimouski vs Chicoutimi. Rimouski has become "our" hockey team for our stay here and at the first game of the season...THEY WON! 

Fair enough it was an "overtime win" but still, what a rush being at that game!

Saturday was an entirely different matter...Drove over 400 km with Lewis (another assistant who lives about an hour from Amqui, little town called Matapédia which had 600 people in it!!!) to get to Fredericton - New Brunswick - and was so glad people understood me when I spoke English!! Even met an Irishman! What a night...

We had the pleasure of seeing this kind of view the whole way there though - 

Colours are actually so vibrant they look fake!!!

Yah so we get to Fredericton, where it's pissing it down (as it has been the whole way there) and first thing that happens as we get there - at half 4 pm - is get offered a "welcome shot" by our host and guide for the night Ryan Owens! :D Happy days.

Spent most of the evening slowly sipping on Dissaronno and Pepsi (which tastes like marzipan by the way! Delish!). Now when I say slowly, I mean i took about 6 hours - getting giddy and giggly to then head out into Fredericton itself!

We went out to about 5 different bars before finding one good enough to stay for all of 2 hours...

End of the night we go out to a Chinese place, I get a burger and Lewis gets a Chinese poutine...which tasted...well I can't really recall how it tasted to be honest :) (hence why I don't actually count it as my first poutine...)

Go back to the halls, the boys go on munching on Bugels, (which are amazing crisps) telling me...no INSISTING that I have some and just saying: "These Bugels though..." everytime I say I don't want any!

The drive home was a bit torturous as Lewis and I had to travel 400 km very hungover, get stopped over by the police as Lewis was speeding slightly (I was sleeping and was shocked when awoken by him screaming "fuck, police!").

Anyway got let off with a warning...as we were English, obviously a pair of tourists, and I don't think he was really bothered by us being  a danger on the road ;)

Lewis and I almost argued and made the journey very awkward, but I slept, he had some quiet time and it was all much better in the end :)

All in all a very good and successful weekend I'd say :)

This weekend was a bit tamer, but fun all the same. 

Met a few cool students at school who asked me to go out with them Friday night and last night. 

We got all glammed up, but were inevitably out staged by the cowgirls in bikinis getting soaked for 10 solid minutes...
Woke up Saturday morning to realise one of my ceiliing tiles has collapsed onto the floor due to a burst water pipe - I'll admit...not the best thing to wake up to, but at least it's fixable! Had someone come round to check it out, and can't have anything done till tomorrow, so my living room has looked like this for 2 days...

Chilled movie night in on Saturday and today went to Rimouski (closest big town, bout an hour and a half away) to get a birthday present for a special someone, and try to find some good walking boots, although this inevitably failed...

No special Thanksgiving dinner plans, just me, some home made bolognese, and a film before bed :)

Keep you posted on what happens next :D

xx Chipmunk.

p.s. - not quite sure why, but it's highlighted all my text for me and can't get it off so...sorry bout that...

School! [10th - 20th of Sept]

Right, so I need to condense 2 weeks into 1 post... CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

First day of school:

My thoughts: "Here I go...am shitting myself...what if they don't like me? What if I'm not meant to teach? What if they don't respect me at all, start drawing on the walls and shouting abuse at me!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH"

How it  really went down: 

Deborah: "Hello everyone, this is Sabrina, she will be your assistant for the year, so you'll all be spending about an hour a day with her - if you do anything wrong, any swearing, talking out of place, being on the phone, etc... then you'll have to reply back to me, because she WILL tell me about it"

Me: "Thank GOD..." (Everyone laughs) *wave of relief washes over me*

Everything went pretty smoothly, went into the classroom that would now be mine for the next 9 months and love every inch of it, trying to make it my own as much as possible.
Following my mother's advice about and "ice breaker" lesson, everyone was very well behaved and wanted to know every excruciating detail of my life from where I'm from down to what my grand mother's birthday! - which I now know is the 9th of March 1922 (in case you wanted to know...)

My Classroom :)

They have a break every hour - which I needed at first for the amount of cigarettes I smoked in the first week! - and the students have seemed to take a liking to me as I try to spend time with them during those breaks (as well as with the teachers, lets not single anyone out here) and have invited me to go out with them to do a few things :)

The rest of the week was pretty much the same, with us playing games like Hangman, Sentence Races, Smash etc... and they have all really started to participate and are enjoy the lessons! A few are still playing on their phones or chatting in class but I have made it my mission to get everyone's undivided attention by the end of the year!!



Week 2:

Monday - Wednesday I struggled a bit, especially for the morning lessons. I had thought of 3 or 4 games to do with them in case any of the first ones failed to fill in the required time, and they all failed, leaving me feeling WORSE than I did the first day!!
Improvisation is not my strong point, so we spent most of the lessons playing Hangman and trying to have little conversations in English which always turned back into French... TEACHING FAIL!!!!

Today though made it all worth it. The students are now all waving or saying hello to me in the hallways, smiling as I go by. I know most of their names (although some I still have mind blanks on), a few of them I have already really connected with, they have been paying more attention and trying really hard to understand everything before I try to explain it in French.

We played a game called Stop the Bus - you have a table of different categories e.g. colours, animals, clothes etc.. I give them a letter from the alphabet and they have to find a word starting with that letter for each category. Now this game, I definitely recommend! I played it this morning with all of them, and they became more competitive than I have ever seen them so far. They were  interested, alert and desperately wanted to win! TEACHING WIN!!!!

[Side note - one of the students told me today that a lot of her friends have been telling each other that if they have English that day to ask to come with me as my lessons are really fun and I'm a lot more organised than last year's assistant - 2ND WIN OF THE WEEK :)]

Now that I've found a few games they really enjoy, I can focus on trying to find or make up some similar ones for them in the weeks to come and I now cannot wait to go back to school to see their little faces smiling up at me again :)


More to follow sooooooooooooon....

xx Chipmunk.

Arrival into Amqui - NEW APARTMENT [8th of Sept]

So got picked up around 8.30 am, had a Tim Horton's with Beth and Lewis (it's so yummmmyyy!!! :D)

Deborah (my "responsable") is a lovely woman full of amazing stories and she's also a great mentor! 

My apartment is so lovely, full of space even with all my things unpacked - don't know how to work the washing machine though...

Subway round the corner, and everything is under 10 minutes away from me ! Horrah!

Living Room

Living Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Bathroom

:)

Big Ass Washing Machine!

Bedroom

BED :D

The next day went to Deborah's  for the afternoon and we went Quad Biking :) Went to Vallée D'Irene - which is the mountain where we're going to spend Christmas at/SKI!!!!!

Now THIS is a 4 wheeler 

Damn Autofocus

Lovely Deborah

Gorgeous

I want to live here foreverrrr

Vallée D'Irene

Spending Xmas here :D

Might be our cabin

Or this..

He was building a plane!

or THIS!

xx Chipmunk

Exploring Montreal and Getting Informed. [4th till 7th of Sept]

Days 3 - 6 of the adventure.

There was a lot of firsts done in Montreal :)
Fun time exploring the city with the guuurls :) 

First Metro Trip

This post is going to be mostly pictures as I need to be planning my lessons for next week and these pics basically say it all :D

First wake up together ;)

Pit stop for a juice (along with wasps...useless wasps..)

First time I've seen a Coke glass with a handle!

The Gazette 

The Awkward picture.

More comfortable

The Original Hunger Games

The Basillica of Notre-Dame

GORGEOUS

This organ has 82 pipes!

The few days after that was really just sitting in a room listening to Renaud talk about teaching and how it should be done!
Lots of cigarette breaks with Melissa (blonde girl in coca cola picture) and lots of coffee to stay awake!

Pit stop at the end of the day for an iced coffee.

Lovely roomate Beth at the hotel in Matane (8th of September)

When we arrived at the hotel around midnight the night before, had a bit of a blonde moment and said : "Wow, it smells like the sea!!" Yeah... my bad... IT WAS DARK OK!?

xx Chipmunk

Early Bird!!! [2nd and 3rd of Sept]

Right, so, I'm in my third year at Exeter University doing French and Spanish - which most of you reading this will know by now - having to do a year abroad. As I lived in France for a "while", and always having wanted to visit Canada, what better opportunity to do so than by coming here to teach some English!?

You'll probably be thinking "Canada...teaching English? You crazy bitch?" - Of course not! I'm in the lovely province of Quebec; Amqui to be exact (look it up because even the people living in good ol' QC don't know where it is!) and 99.9% of these people don't even know what "poo" or "pee" means.

Anyhoo - I landed in Montréal Airport on the 2nd of September around 8.15 pm local time (meaning 1.15 am Landaaan time - ouch!), went through customs, they made sure I wasn't a bomber who'd waited to LAND to actually set myself off or try to bring "fresh fruit and veg" into their lovely country. The guy at the customs I don't think liked me very much as he sent me to the wrong place to get my visa checked out - where I waited half an hour to be seen and then told I had to go back upstairs [bear in mind it was about 2 am by this time for me!]. After all that kurfuffle at the airport, I finally arrived to my hotel room around 10.45 local time (you do the math!), and not only was I greeted by the nicest clerks I had ever met - my bed was the size of a small California King Bed (look it up) !!! Best night's sleep I have EVER had in my LIFE.


Being the first to arrive has both it's advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage:
You get to discover the city for yourself not having to follow others around like sheep.
Disadvantage:
When everyone else arrives, they think you know the city like the back of your hand as it is no longer a foreign land - Became the Leader (shit..)

Advantage:
Have lots of ideas you will pitch to everyone else so it's not so expensive for you when they get here and want to do the same thing.
Disadvantage:
They generally don't want to do the same thing as you or still consider it too expensive even if it's split by 5!!!

Advantage:
You get to go back to the hotel and chill whenever you like - maybe go for a swim and not worry about leaving anyone behind.
Disadvantage:
When you get lost as you're BY YOURSELF and even though you have been told you have a good sense of direction, realise you're going the opposite way of the desired destination!


Ok, not gonna go on forever about being alone in the city for the first day but here are a few snaps I took along the way (camera died, feet hurt and was too hot - hence why I went back):

China Town.

Amazing mural graffiti - looks even more incredible in real life.

ALCOHOL CAKE - for you Fran ;)

Horse and Carriage.

Walking in Old Montreal.

xx Chipmunk