Knock, and the door shall be opened

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Ken.
Ken who?
Ken I get an answer here?

I am still playing the waiting game -- Wait and see, wait and see...
But I'm feeling better about it all. Some housing possibilities have opened up this week, more are to come, and I feel sure that something will work out, and that I will have somewhere new to live for the month of November. I don't know where yet, and I don't know when I'll move exactly, but I think that these details will be worked out by the time needed. The French don't seem to mind this waiting. So, I won't stress out about it either.

As for work, I've begun leading conversation groups this week. I took a class Monday morning, more introductions in the afternoon, and then I took two classes on Tuesday afternoon. One of these is an English conversation hour - for it, I printed an opinion piece followed by 3 shortened points-of-view on the topic, and had my students read it aloud and tell their thoughts on the subject. These four older students chose to take this hour of English conversation practice, so they were motivated and wanted to be there. They wanted to take every opportunity to practice their speaking. Ideal students! For the younger ones, I need to prepare differently, because they have to be forced to speak. So that's a little tougher. But, I've made them talk for their 20-30 minutes, and we got through it. I think it will be easier once I have a better grasp on their English levels...to me, it's still pretty unclear what they know and what they don't, and each class is different. What worked with one, might lead to a bunch of blank looks from another! So, I don't think I'm a great teacher... But I'll improve my methods. I'll prepare some more for Friday. At least the students are well-behaved, and I get them in smaller groups. It's supposed to be a privilege to get time with the English assistant. This week, walking around the school's campus, I overheard a few "C'est l'assistante anglaise," "Elle est l'américaine," and even got a few "HELLOOOOO"s from students. I'm a celebrity! :)

If you're particularly curious, you may be wondering where it is that I teach these pupils. Well, for right now, I take a group, and use my key (I have a master key) to "masterfully" unlock the doors of what I hope will be empty classrooms. Alas...on my first try (after turning the key around about 5 times to finally unlock this door), I discovered, not a classroom, but a closet. For the next group, I was equally impressive. I locked, then unlocked, the door of a classroom in use. Oops! Thankfully it was one of the English teachers who came to the door wondering who was disrupting the lesson by trying so hard to open the door... The lesson learned is, when you're attempting to go somewhere (like an empty, locked classroom), there's a sort of process that can help you out a lot. First, you need to knock. You might hear an answer - but you might not! So knocking alone is not enough, you should also try to open the door. Maybe you'll open it to find something unexpected! Or maybe it actually is locked. But at least then you'll know. So, if it is still locked at this point, THEN you take out the master key to unlock it...et voilà!