I took this picture today of me wearing my awesome new French soccer jersey, signed by some of my students:
Today I got up, ate a nice little breakfast, and headed to the store to buy something. On my way, I envied all the people I saw sitting out at Bar le BMC, one of the few places to sit out in the sun and sip a beverage in Lure. I thought about how I should probably go get a drink and enjoy the sun. But I knew I had lots to do today. My plans were to get all my lessons done for Monday. Plus I had to do laundry. I debated doing laundry, and I debated going to BMC. But I decided this one time, I would leave my laundry in the machine and go sit at BMC instead of waiting at the laundromat. Is a Coke alone really worth 2 euros? Not really. But for the experience of sitting out in the sunshine around other people, it's worth it. So I did it.
After I put my laundry in, I checked the time and promptly went over to BMC, where I chose a table perfectly situated just outside the shadow of the building. I ordered my Coke, got out my notebook, and began writing down some more ideas for my lessons. I remember thinking it was just a great idea! A perfect way to kill two birds with one stone: laundry AND sitting outside. But that was about to change. Not long after sitting down, this odd woman came up to the women sititng at the table next to me. She touched their baguette that was sitting on their table and said something about it. "Hmm," I thought. "I wouldn't appreciate that too much if I were one of those women." But whatever. Then, about 20 seconds later, the weird lady comes up and sits in one of the three empty chairs surrounding my table. Like she was my friend or something. She looked at me strangely, like she was wondering how I was going to react. "What are you doing?" I asked her in French. People around me watched, surprised I was saying anything.
"What am I doing? I'm sitting down.""
"Why here?" I responded.
She got up and moved to the table next to me, where two other women were sitting. I was a little freaked out, but I figured that was the end of it.
I was wrong.
I couldn't concentrate on my lessons anymore because this woman was so distracting. After only a couple minutes, she came back up and sat at my table. I didn't even mess around this time. I stood up, grabbed, my Coke and my notebook, told her I wasn't going to stay there if she was going to smoke (which wasn't entirely the only reason), and walked INSIDE and sat down. The original ladies with the baguette turned and looked at me from outside. I'm sure they were thinking that was pretty gutsy of me. (They later ended up inside also!) But I'm sorry. I'm not going to sit and let this woman freak me out. So the creepy woman moved tables again, back to the second women. Finally I decided it sucked sitting inside on a perfectly sunny day. So I went back outside, only this time I chose a table on the opposite side of the baguette ladies so that there were two tables between me and the creept lady. In the shade. It kind of sucked. I was cold. And mad that this stupid woman ruined my 2 euro Coke/sun experience in the middle of my so-far perfect day. While sitting there, the crazy woman went up and sat at other various tables, too. For whatever reason, I was the only one, though, who wasn't tolerating it.
Guess what happened next. Yep. You got it. She came back to my table. At that point I was ready to just leave. But I hadn't finished my Coke, and I didn't want to leave it. All I could think to do was tell someone about it. I didn't know if maybe this woman was a serious threat or just drunk. So I went inside and told the bartender (a very nice woman) that there was a woman outside who was bothering everyone by sitting down at all their tables and that she was, frankly, scaring me. I could barely get the words out of my mouth. I was literally shaking and about to cry. It was wasn't a secret. She asked me who it was, and the crazy lady outside could see that I was "tattling" on her. She came in to ask what was up. She kept coming closer to me and trying to talk to me, and I kept telling her to leave me alone. I didn't feel unsafe because there were tons of people around. But basically she was harassing me. I mean if this had been in the US, I would have considered calling the police. Well actually I would have just gotten in my car and left. Anyway, I continued to demand she leave me alone, and then behind me some voices shouted out, "Betsy!" Oh my gosh. Someone here knows me. ??? Who could it be? I figured it was probably some students (well, who else would know me?). And it was. But I didn't recognize them at all. Maybe because they were in Fabienne's class. The one I only went to, according to them, four times, each of which I was only with half the class. So that explains why I didn't recognize these girls. But they asked if I wanted to sit with them. I felt so stupid. I mean I was really happy they were there and saved me, but I was shaking and couldn't catch my cool. And thus, my French sucked. I had to basically explain everything that had just happened to them, although I'm sure they saw it all. I still thought I was going to cry. (I honestly don't know why. It's just the feeling of being a victim of something so unnecessary and out of my control. Same feeling I got at the bank with the 861 euro fiasco.) Whenever I get like this, something inside me just tells me to cry and not worry about what other people think, and that it's easier to just cry and then explain than it is to hold it back and try to explain at the same time. But somehow I pulled it together. Well, I sat with them for about fifteen minutes. It was really the first time I talked to any of the students in French, with the exception of a few phrases here and there. They were cool and really really nice. And it didn't feel like I was talking to 17 year-olds. They felt like my friends! Weird! Although we didn't talk for long, they saved me from the scary lady. I asked them if it was wrong of me to have said anything, and they said no! They had seen her being all creepy to other people, too, and one of the girls said she would have probably done the same thing if it had were to happen to her in the U.S. So all in all, it turned out well.
Back at my room, I went out on my roof for the first time. Kaitlin's been trying to get me to go out there forever now, but I always refuse because I was specifically told and the beginning of my contract not to go out on the roof. But since it's break and no one's around, I didn't really care. And really, had it been any other Saturday, I still probably would have done it. I did it to put my laundry out to dry. It was soooo nice all day today, I had to. So I did.
And then I had Chinese food for dinner. And here's a picture I took of Lure at night, on my way home:
And now I am going to bed. Tomorrow will be a lesson-planning marathon. And that's a fact.
1 comment:
Did I ever tell you the story of my friend getting hit on the head with a newspaper by a crazy lady in France???
Your story kinda reminded me of that...
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