Paris to Manchester and Back Again

Whoops it's hard to believe I let a month go by since the last post!

I am currently on the tail-end of my vacation. I spent a weekend in Paris with Lizzie, which included biking around Paris, seeing my old roommates from Besançon, and a particularly poor restaurant experience with a rude manager who finished by crumpling up our bill with a "c'est fini," and us walking out without paying. We also had several very good restaurant experiences, but alas it's the bad one that sticks out most in our minds. Looking back though, all we can do is laugh.

I just returned to Paris last night where I am now staying with an old friend. I spent 10 days with Lizzie in Manchester but unfortunately I had to leave her there as she has finished work in Rennes! We had an excellent day trip to York, a bike ride around Manchester, went to see two plays, a visit to the Unitarian Church and afternoon tea with Lizzie's grandmother, meet-ups with old friends, and overall a splendid time.

Today I am off to Reims for the day to see the sights. I look forward to welcoming my family here on Saturday!

Another Day, Another Gig

This past Friday marked my second acoustic concert in Bar le Saint Melaine, though this time without the disco lights! My friend Georgia sang with me on four songs, including my original tune Liza Ray, and considering we only had two rehearsals it went very well. This time a big group of Spanish teaching assistants came out, as well as some good friends from Rennes. I think it's safe to say that no banjo player in a bow-tie and suspenders has ever graced this bar before. There is still so sound equipment, though he says he will get some. I intend to look into playing elsewhere as well.

Teaching is going pretty well, though it can be a bit dull sometimes. I did the same introductory lesson for a new class yesterday that I've probably done 15 times now. I'm getting pretty good at it! Since most of the classes I see regularly are divided into small groups and I am assigned work to do with them, I plan lessons for relatively few classes. I've probably been using the same 6 lessons or so for months now. I do have a small group I see every Tuesday now that will give me an opportunity to be more creative. I have noticed while doing the same lesson for many different classes how varied a class's response can be to what I am doing! Sometimes a particular lesson works great with one group, and is a complete flop with another. It just shows me that if something doesn't go well it isn't necessarily that I am doing a poor job. I do, however, think that it's very important as a teacher to read your students and try to adjust in order to connect with them.

This weekend Lizzie and I lucked out as her employers were driving up to Saint Malo for the day, and offered to give us a ride! It was nice for me to return as it has been nearly two years, and it was Lizzie's first time visiting the fortified coastal city. I should have pictures up soon! I finally have the brakes fixed on my bike, and now Lizzie has one as well, so as the weather turns I'm sure I will take advantage of the canal by my school more and more. We rode into town and back along it yesterday, and spotted some very large rodents swimming around after dark. It was hard to get a good look, but we've decided they were probably muskrats.

On that note, I had better get ready for class. Happy Tuesday!

Music and the Art of Franglais

I am happy to say my concert was a great success! I think people heard and enjoyed my music as about as much as they could enjoy any acoustic banjo show without amplification in a noisy bar - and of course, I can't forget the disco lights! In all seriousness, I had a lovely time. Many of my friends and aquaintances, especially fellow teaching assistants, showed up. They were all very kind. The owner of this bar, Bar Le Sainte Melaine, made it clear he would be very happy to have me back, and so I plan to schedule another concert soon. I am, in fact, in this bar at the moment, taking advantage of the wifi to upload some photos to facebook and a few videos of my concert to youtube. Ah - and my friend Gael was nice enough to let me borrow his Martin guitar for the concert! This definitely added something.


I started off the week interestingly enough; I asked two students to leave from a group of four I was teaching for consistently being disruptive! I told their teacher after class, and she was very unhappy to hear that and told the principal. I saw him later that afternoon and he asked me what had happened, and then I saw the students sitting outside his office the following morning! I see that they take discipline seriously here. Other than that teaching has been going pretty well. This week I've done lessons with a few classes on "fake" English words used in French. They use English a lot in French, but oftentimes in ways that wouldn't be understood by a native speaker. A few examples: "les people" means celebrities, "un smoking" is a tuxedo, and "un relax" is a lounge chair!


À bientôt!

English Christmas, French Castle

Christmas has past, and indeed the new year is well on its way as I begin my third week of classes since returning from vacation. I am long overdue for a blog update!

To briefly recap on Christmas:

I flew to England with Lizzie and spent the holidays with her family and making the most of vacation. I met and spent time with lots of family and friends of the family, talked, ate, laughed, watched mostly quality television programs, played "Dance Central" on Xbox Kinect and more. Pictures of Christmas day can be found on my facebook - a hectic but happy family meal and then present opening gathered in the main room. I will have to show off my new banjo cufflinks! New Year was spent in Birmingham with friends of Lizzie's that had also become my own as I had the privilege of meeting a few of these young British Unitarians this summer in Illinois at OPUS, and then more this past September at the BUYAN conference.

Since back I organized a successful dinner for language teaching assistants in Rennes with about 15 people at what has become my favorite local Indian restaurant. I took a successful trip to Vitré to see the old walled city and castle with some good friends. I've been sharing banjo music and American culture as best as I can with my French students.

This past Thursday a friend from back in Knoxville, Amien, came to visit. It was good to see a face from back home, and have the opportunity to show someone around Rennes. We went out Thursday for drinks and music with Lizzie, a French friend, and another American assistant, and walked around the city at night. Friday we spent a good portion of the day walking around the city, finding respite from the intermittent rain when possible. At least Amien didn't get any misconceptions about Breton weather! We saw the premiere of Black Swan that night, a ballet thriller with Natalie Portman that is definitely worth a watch. Afterwards, like a true Breton, we went for crepes and cidre.

I have managed to line up a concert this coming Thursday at a bar in town! I have been wanting to play for a while, and I heard from a colleague that Bar le St Melaine, which holds ERASMUS parties (for foreign exchange students). would be a good place to ask. The owner was very enthusiastic about my proposal for an acoustic concert, and was happy to book me without even listening to my music! I hope he won't regret it. This seems a really nice place to play, and the owner told me if it went well he'd be happy to have me regularly. I had better get to practicing! Luckily Gael, from whom I bought my banjo, lent me a guitar in December. When I was over yesterday to play music with him he asked me if I was planning on using the old guitar he lent me in the concert, and when I affirmed this he said he would bring one of his nicer guitars with him to the concert for me to perform on. Quelle chance!

Well, now that I'm more or less caught up, it's time to do lesson planning and music practicing. I'll update soon... no, really I will!