travels...

This weekend: Paris
Next weekend: Lyon
Weekend after: Strasbourg Christmas Markets
Weekend after that: ANGLETERRE!!! (shout it out!)

x

students

Just also to say that I am so happy with the lycée I am placed in. Although it's a little bit out of town, the students are just awesome and they make up for everything. Today some of them said they wanted to stay in the class for the entire week, haha, and some said they want to come to England to party with me, and some others said they want to come see the Snowball Effect play... aww they make me SMILE. :)

(And i just got paid 900euros... SWEET.)

x

police accuse innocent english girl...

So last night I got stopped and searched by the Police. To be fair, it was 2am, Chalon was empty and I was standing on the pavement looking in a shop window for a long long time... but still... I feel violated! Haha. I got so scared when they shouted "Arrete! Police!" and chased me down the road...

They let me go when they realised I'm an innocent foreigner, but they even had the audacity to laugh at my papers they found in my bag... from my ACCORDIAN LESSON that I had that day (yes, you read that right! French pop starts here...!) They went through my purse too, checking that I knew my own name... thankfully I could remember.

OH. there is a first time for everything.

x

shall-on-sir-sewn

Hello from Chalon sur Saone!

Today was just a typical example of a french working day. I went to my class, only to find that the teacher was on strike! So I gave a lesson to a class anyway, they'd turned up and were still keen to speak English for an hour... still, at the moment France is slowing down to a halt because of all this striking, all these grèves are right annoying! The trains aren't running either, so our weekends are pretty non-eventful. OH MAN. Waaaaaaaaaah.

On the plus side, I'm so excited to be part of organising a bible study in Chalon with my friend Sarah from Texas! So yeahhh. We did some posters and are gonna put them up tomorrow. It's going to be a weekly thing, starting off looking at Matthew. We'll be doing it in English and French so it's for people to come along in a relaxed environment (a café) and practise their languages as well as learn about Jesus. As I said, I'm excited! God has something going on here... tapping into that... prayers appreciated!

Also last year Sarah went to China and worked with the underground church there, oh my word; it sounds intense... makes me really wanna go out there. Maybe I will do. Must read The Heavenly Man first!!!

much love! stay in touch!

xxx

flying time!!

Hey everyone:::::::::

oh wow! I've been in france almost 2 months! Time flies... feels like so much has happened, i can hardly imagine a life without Chalon! I do totally love it here!

I think in the next few weeks I will be posting snippets of my time here, little stories which made me giggle, things worth noting, my observations etc etc...

Right now I'm in the web cafe so I'm gonna head off and come back to do this properly some time:::

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping in contact with me, it seriously means so much to me to know that I have that ongoing support!

Love xxxxx

no fear

Flights are booked! I'm leaving on the 24th, flying from Stansted airport in the afternoon, arriving in Lyon and getting the train over to Chalon. My daddy dear is coming with me to help me carry the 2 suitcases I've had to cram my life in to! <3

Yeah, it's weird but I'm not worried about this... I just know that it's all going to be fine - I have a real peace about going. (this makes a change from the beginning of the year when I was absolutely petrified at the thought!)

What can I say, I'm just... cool. ;-)

AND I'm going to be 21 in a week. Happy Birthday to meeeeee

xx

The Lord can be trusted to make you strong and protect you from harm.

2 Thessalonians 3:3

L'Effet Boule-de-Neige!

Oh, the internet is such a strange, strange thing. It's put me in contact with many people who I'll meet next year already!


So I was talking to Patricia, my 'boss-to-be' on MSN, haha... speaking in French! She asked me about my profile picture. I told her it was me and my friend, and we play in a group called The Snowball Effect. About half an hour later, after she'd had a phone conversation with her friend, she said this:


pat just sent you a Nudge!

pat says:
c'est toi sur you tube et sur myspace? (translation: 'is that you on youtube and myspace?')
Emily says:
hehe, ouiii ('yessss'-lol)
pat says:
super!!!
pat says:
ça va nous changer des autres assistants! ('that makes a change from the other assistants!')
Emily says:
vraiment? ('really?')
pat says:
pas mal ce que vous faites avec ton groupe! ('not bad what you do!)
pat says:
tu viens avec ta guitare j imagine! pour nous faire écouter un peu!('you're bringing your guitar i imagine! so we can listen a bit!')



...Oh. My. Word. How embarrassing. She must have searched youtube and myspace for us! Ahhh. Then she said lots of the students are musicians, and she was going to put me in contact with one in particular who is 'super nice and has the same personality as you'. How she can tell what my personality is like after our brief conversations in my limited French? Yeah, it's all a bit cringey, but also sweet that she's making the effort to do that and I already feel very welcome and looked after. I just hope Nicola comes over to Chalon so we can do something for the students - now that would be weirdly fun.

Ah, there's nothing like music to bring everyone together! :-)

xx

So... it's Chalon!

Salut! I've been meaning to update this for a while, and now I have some time to sit and type so here we go!

I found out where in France I'm going, and it's NOT Montpelier as I had hoped for, but in fact it's in a little town in central France called Chalon-Sur-Saone, less than an hour south of Dijon (mustard land). It's marked on the map on the right!

For 12 hours a week, I shall be teaching at Nicéphore Niépce lycée, a sciencey kind of school with a large majority of male pupils (!!!) aged between 14 and their early twenties. Apparently what I'll be doing is mainly discussion based lessons, according to Patricia - the English teacher at the school, who I was chatting to over MSN this morning! She seemed very friendly and keen to answer any questions!

Ooooh another good thing, I get free accommodation living in the school! I got an email from Chris, who was the previous assistant, and he said it'll be in the former nurse's quarters above the medical room... apparently very basic (very very basic!) but it means I get to save money and time on finding a flat. :-D

I went out to Chalon for a week at the beginning of August, to have a look around and allow my parents to see where I would be.

During this time, I attempted to set up a bank account, bought a french mobile, saw the school, forgot how to say 'How much is it?', got embarrassed, drank copious amounts of coffee, discovered an amazing tea rooms, took trips to Dijon and Beaune, made friends with some random french people, got to know the town very well, had quality time with my parents, wrote lots of stuff, sat on lots of trains, got told I looked "too cute and young to be taken seriously" by an old woman in a restaurant when I told her what I'm going to be doing, decided to tone down the 'peroxide hair' :-(, after a very loud screeching of breaks I saw a toddler get hit by a car but he wasn't killed, thank God! Found a potential church and yeah, generally let the atmosphere of Chalon soak in.

I liked it a lot. It's a small town but not too small, it has everything I need and I'm sure I will discover so much more over the next few months.

I just got back from Soul Survivor, where my faith has been completely restored - in God, in people, in the world, in love. I'm so glad there's a place like that, somewhere I can go where it's like I'm being dipped in heaven. Soaking up nothing but goodness. I went their feeling verrrry empty, now I feel more alive than ever, more in touch with everything around me and with a desire to know God more.

In France, I'm not assuming I will have any kind of good Christian support around me so I'm going to have to be strong in what I stand for. It's just me and God, I'll be relying on Him loads - with Him all things are possible.

"You are closest to who you are when you are closest to your creator."

And I don't want to be anything other than ... me, so that says it all.

Thanks for reading :-) Au Revoir!

xx