Entries tagged with "vichy"
Votre dévouée élève, qui vous aime de tout son coeur
posted by srah on July 24, 2003 12:07 AM
Tags: assistantship, books, french, grenoble, quote, reviews, teaching, the professor, vichy
While reading The Professor (thanks for suggesting it, Katie), I was full of fantasies about updating it (à la Pride & Prejudice/Bridget Jones), writing a novel loosely based on it, or bringing it to the big screen. The book is about an Englishman who is unhappy in his work, so he goes off to Belgium and teaches English. I like it despite the protagonist's airs of grandeur, because there are parts that remind me of my experiences as a teaching assistant in France. No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession,...
Even más fotos
posted by srah on May 31, 2003 10:49 PM
Tags: assistantship, auvergne, bruges, new york city, photos, shenandoah valley, travel, vichy
Vulcania Vichy Brioude Brugge/Bruges Various trips in southern Auvergne NYC trip Shenandoah Valley...
Boba Fett in Vichy
posted by srah on May 2, 2003 3:00 PM
Tags: assistantship, star wars, vichy
Just when you thought Vichy couldn't get any stranger, along comes the Cusset Star Wars Convention complete with special guest Boba Fett. It's a shame it's coming at a time when I have so much to do, because I would have gone just to experience the weirdness and to say hi to Boba....
Hey you! On the bicycle!
posted by srah on April 24, 2003 12:32 PM
Tags: assistantship, vichy
Spotted today in the Capital of All Things Weird: a car inching (or should I say centimetring?) down the road, a speaker strapped to the top. Unfortunately, they were not advertising a Rhythm and Blues Show, but some kind of reptile extravaganza in Cusset with Real Live Crocodiles From America!...
Bon cinéma!
posted by srah on April 21, 2003 5:17 PM
Tags: assistantship, movies, vichy
For weeks now, I've been looking forward to seeing Bon Voyage. The previews looked incredibly stupid, but the leading man looked really hot. No, not Gérard Depardieu. The other leading man. Anyway, WWII-era costumes and Grégori Derangère were all this movie had going for it in my opinion, but I am shallow, so I considered it well worth paying 6€ to see a Hot Guy In Costume. I am glad I did, because it turned out to be a funny, dramatic, good movie with, as an added bonus, scenes filmed at the Aletti Palace Hotel in Vichy. Rather ironic that...
Ah, ces Américaines!
posted by srah on April 21, 2003 12:59 PM
Tags: assistantship, holidays, vichy
Vichy, as we know, is insane. While everything was unexpectedly open on Easter Sunday, everything was unexpectedly closed on the fake fake holiday of Easter Monday. We managed, however, to have a visit to our favorite salon de thé (yes, THOTs, we are old ladies), where I nibbled on a Paris-Brest and drank a thé au lait (rather than protein-rich beet juice). There's a joke in there somewhere, but I don't expect you to get it and I'm certainly not going to explain it....
Sunday, damn bloody Sunday
posted by srah on April 20, 2003 1:07 PM
Tags: ann arbor, assistantship, vichy
One thing I will not miss about Vichy is Sunday afternoons. It reminds me of Art Fair in Ann Arbor. Suddenly the town is invaded by hordes of shoppers who descend upon it, much to the chagrin of the natives who can't get anywhere because of the crowds. Strangely enough, both cases involve Andean pipe bands playing on street corners and selling their discs. Vichy, as a heavily touristic town, is one of the few places in France where shops open on Sundays. Thus people come from all over the region to shop, to see, to be seen, and to...
L'ennui
posted by srah on April 15, 2003 6:46 PM
Tags: assistantship, vichy
It has suddenly struck me that when I go home, the main problem may be boredom. This is completely ridiculous, since I regularly complained of boredom here in Vichy, where I don't have a TV or computer. I think, instead, that I fear monotony. I fear that life won't be as incredibly strange and unpredictable as it has been here in the Epicenter of All Things Weird....
About your town
posted by srah on March 31, 2003 5:53 AM
Tags: assistantship, vichy
This meme comes from here. I have chosen to talk about Vichy because I don't know anything about hotels in Ann Arbor. I'm coming to visit your town. Recommend the following, with reasons why I should go to these places: The best resturant, the one I have to eat at, at least once, while I'm in your town. The restaurant gastronomique of the lycée Valéry Larbaud, of course! It is very fancy and elegant and not too expensive for the excellent quality of service and the quality and quantity of the food served there. Only 11€ for lunch, 22€ for...
Visit of the sister
posted by srah on March 23, 2003 11:15 AM
Tags: assistantship, host family, vichy
Sophie came to visit me this weekend, and I took her to a dinner at Presles. There was great confusion in explaining to the others who she was and what she was doing there, seeing as she was not actually my sister, not an assistant, and that while she was a high school student, she was not a student at Presles or in Vichy at all. We explored the sites of Vichy, then invented some more when we had exhausted the established ones....
February Vacation pictures
posted by srah on March 21, 2003 6:11 AM
Tags: andover, assistantship, england, grenoble, london, meldreth, paris, photos, travel, vichy
Here they come: Vichy Grenoble Paris Meldreth Stonehenge Andover London...
Vichy soie
posted by srah on March 10, 2003 12:57 PM
Did you know that vichy is the French name for the fabric we call gingham? That makes me wonder if we used to call it vichy ourselves, and the name got changed during WWII, like calling sauerkraut "victory cabbage" or German shepherds "Alsatians"....
Plumbers at the crack of dawn
posted by srah on February 12, 2003 4:25 PM
Tags: assistantship, housing, vichy
So much for my nice Wednesday grasse matinée. Apparently they did not finish the shower yesterday, so they are back this morning. I've said it before and I'll say it again: that room is cursed and the entire building is the epicenter of All Things Weird in Vichy....
Three reasons to stay home
posted by srah on January 18, 2003 11:46 AM
Tags: assistantship, vichy
1) It's sales season in Vichy and the streets and stores are packed, which makes me claustrophobic. 2) The price of a demi-baguette has gone up from 30 to 32 cents, making things very uneven and ensuring that I get a handful of nasty little copper coins instead of an even 10 or 20 cent piece. 3) There is a clown playing the trumpet in the Rue de l'Hôtel des Postes. As I walked by, he was attacked by a dog, but unfortunately it was part of his act....
The shutterbug strikes again
posted by srah on December 16, 2002 4:57 AM
Tags: antoine, assistantship, auvergne, photos, sables d'olonne, travel, vichy
More Vichy and the environs Thiers Trip to the Puy-de-Dôme Les Sables d'Olonne...
In case you haven't noticed, THERE'S NO INTERNET HERE
posted by srah on November 26, 2002 3:36 AM
Tags: ann arbor, assistantship, valery larbaud, vichy
So I am spending my "Planning Period" (a time when the teachers can come and consult me... cleverly scheduled during a time when all of the English teachers are in class) surfing the Encarta encyclopedia instead. Here are the fascinating things I've found: I already knew about Iggy Pop, but apparently 1976 Nobel Prize (Physics) winner Samuel Chao Chung Ting was also born in Ann Arbor. There is a place in Provence (Vaucluse, to be specific) called Le plateau d'Albion, where the French had underground missile silos, but apparently don't anymore. I'm a little disappointed. The 1990 population of Vichy...
Yup, that's about it
posted by srah on November 8, 2002 11:52 AM
Tags: assistantship, paris, teaching, vichy
Googlism for Vichy, France: vichy, france is bad enough vichy, france is that it The other day, one of the conversation-starting questions I used on my class was "Would you like to live in Paris one day? Why or why not?" That worked so well, I had them list the advantages and disadvantages of Vichy as well. They talked about the parks and the opera and the nightclubs and how it was calmer than Paris and less polluted. The only disadvantage they could come up with for Vichy was that there were so many old people. Nice to know it's...
And yet more pictures
posted by srah on November 8, 2002 11:15 AM
Tags: apartment, assistantship, auvergne, clermont-ferrand, photos, travel, vichy
This should be the last of the bunch for a while... this roll got held up a while with processing problems, but it's number 3 of 5 and therefore fits in somewhere in between the last two installments: More Clermont-Ferrand More Vichy Mon appartement Views from a 25km hike...
Pickshers continued
posted by srah on November 4, 2002 11:35 AM
Tags: alfie, assistantship, grenoble, photos, travel, vichy
The Allier river The Spas Le Parc des Sources Seeing Becky in Grenoble...
Pictures, continued
posted by srah on October 30, 2002 10:16 AM
Tags: assistantship, clermont-ferrand, grenoble, host family, photos, travel, vichy
Mouse over for captions, if you please. Sophie's braids, as done in Mali (and as undone in Grenoble) Y a quoi à Vichy? (to be continued...) School sweet school Trip to la Grande Chartreuse Assistants' Meeting in Clermont-Ferrand...
Damn you, Immo Vichy (25.9.02)
posted by srah on September 26, 2002 4:57 PM
Tags: apartment, assistantship, frustration, housing, vichy
I finally got to visit an apartment today. This one was through an agency, Immo Vichy. The Immo Vichy woman showed me the apartment, which was a delightful studio (read: kitchen in the bedroom) with construction work going on outside, no closet space, no linens, and no oven, all for the delightful price of 250€, which of course does not include tax or utilities. I told her I'd call her. I got an email from one of the other American assistants in the Vichy agglomeration, telling me her phone number and address and saying she was lonely and had an...
