Today was Brannon's last day of school. She let me borrow her photocopy card and I made some 300 copies ... psych! Not sure how many copies I have left on my card but my guess is I'll make it without any problem, given all the classes that are getting cancelled/missed in May. What a relief!

Yesterday I started what will probably be my last "carnet d'absence et de retard." Simply wild.

Last period today my 2e were pretty - how shall I put this nicely? -energized. So I put a mini bar graph on the board marked, "patience meter" and filled it in partway. At the top I put an arrow labelled, "angry". As they annoyed me I filled in more of the meter. It actually worked in helping them calm down and the last part of the class was relatively productive. Go figure.

Today at lunch all the teachers were buzzing about the next round of the election. It got a bit heated when one of the teachers said Sarkozy was fascist. Alain took significant offense and said that even though he wasn't going to vote for Sarkozy, he "could not permit" that to be said about him. Another teacher said that Hitler hadn't done anything terrible before he came to power either, thus implying that Sarkozy could be really dangerous if elected. I just sat and listened. I love it when the French get all riled up!

We got our end-of-year calendar in our mailboxes today. The last day of classes is JUNE 4th! Several days before I had thought it would be. AND there are about 13,402 holidays in France in May, so the only full week of classes I have left is the last week in May. Of course, this means that I will have very few grades for the third trimester for some of my classes ... only three probably for some classes. Fortunately, I don't think that will be a big problem here.

I have grown really attached to some of my classes, and even in the class of 1ere that has been REALLY ANNOYING AND INATTENTIVE lately, I do enjoy the students individually. But even so, I am looking forward to living here, just being in France, with no real work to do (other than packing, but we won't talk about that). I will probably have to supervise the BAC here and there, but it shouldn't be a huge time commitment. The other good news is that the third trimester conseils de classe are during the day, not at night, so my evenings will be free. And I have to submit grades several days before June 4th, so my prep at the end of May will be minimal.

It rained today. That is news because the weather has been incredible here for the past ten days or so ... my guests didn't believe it had been raining all year. (Residents tell me this year is unusual, though.) It was actually kind of nice for the flowers and the trees to get some water.

This weekend our friend Geneviève from Belgium is coming to visit. We are really psyched to see her. However, that will probably mean limited posts over the weekend.

Yesterday all the English teachers took Brannon out to lunch. Tomorrow is her last day. I hope we will keep in touch; I am really going to miss her.

Just as you're not supposed to say "bonjour" to the same person twice in one day, you are not supposed to shake hands with someone twice in one day. Last night, when I got to the Rotary meeting, M. le Proviseur shook Larry's hand. I automatically went to shake his hand, too, but he said, "on s'est déjà vu" and recoiled as if I had the plague. There was no way he was going to break protocol and shake my hand twice. The horror ... the horror! I wonder what would happen if he had shaken my hand again. A bolt of lightning from above? An electric shock? Expulsion from the Rotary for bad manners? The mind boggles!

This evening Larry and I did a presentation on Maine for the Bayeux Rotary. I did my first by-myself Powerpoint (Jim, are you proud?) and it worked well. It was a relatively older crowd, mostly men but some women. They seemed to find it interesting, though it's hard to tell. Larry did a good job speaking French and I was very glad to have him there with his facts and figures during the question and answer period. Anyway, it got me some brownie points with Monsieur le Proviseur and it was kind of fun to be a "conferencière".

Well, the first round of elections is done. Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy scares me, but I am afraid he is the one most likely to win in the second round. Everyone was buzzing in the lunchroom today. It should be an interesting couple of weeks. One thing I really like about elections here is that they are always held on a Sunday - no worrying about getting to the polls in time after work or at lunch. Everybody gets a chance to vote without having to squeeze it into a work day.

It seems very quiet here without the Womyn. I miss them, and can honestly say I wish they were still here. I got an e-mail from Fulbright today congratulating me on completing my exchange (so does that mean I can stay home from school tomorrow?) and asking me to fill out an evaluation. Déjà? Le temps passe vite quand on s'amuse bien ...

On Monday night I was treated to another mini-reunion with Charleyne and Sharon. We shared a delicious meal (merci, Larry!) and got caught up on all the news at WHS. It was so nice to see them and to reconnect. How lucky we are to have so many good friends come and visit!