The Brighter Life

Co-writing will be back!

It is now all set. My gracious co-author, the excellent lady from Faeriesrevenge, will resume working on our little writing experiment for a set of short stories. Of course, the theme will be fairy tales! I can’t wait to start writing again and I feel overjoyed with the mere idea!

Knitting Away…

Sewing is a legacy inherited from my grandma. Sadly, it is incredibly time consuming and living in a Parisian flat doesn’t really help me in this particular endeavour. Knitting is something I have never liked because of its origin in my life, but I have decided to give it a go… I now truly enjoy knitting. It is incredibly relaxing. My first project is knitting a blanket made of Peruvian wool. I…

My current life has a monastic quality to it: work, university, work, study, sleep (sometimes). I keep running between the lycée and university. I am blessed with the most amazing fellow students. If I were looking for a reason to fail my exams, this could be one. Life takes strange meanders. Nonetheless, my souls is craving for artistic endeavours… I can’t fulfill these requests as I simply have…

I have been dead silent. My blog is becoming this fast-growing abandoned woodland of words. This year, my commitments are beyond belief: I work full-time in a secondary & high school. I am now the proud holder of a student card from Université Sorbonne Paris Cité. Truly, I attend Paris 7 for my master MEEF1. I had to find a part-time job from home to make both ends meet and was lucky enough to…

Grading papers for ever and ever

At the minute, I am snowed under papers. Papers to grade have invaded my home. This is the burden of having almost 200 students. I am praying the Gods that I will successfully pass my exams and will be able to enjoy a year of respite next term. (Well, one can dream!)

The packs never cease to disappear. I feel like Sisyphus rolling his rock up the mountain…

The holiday break is coming up soon and…

At the minute, my life is so hectic that I feel that I am playing catch-up all the time. It isn’t the best way to be but until I present my exams in April and finish them off in June (hopefully, I will present the oral part *crossing fingers*), it will pretty much be my state of affairs.

On a regular basis, I cry over the phone when I talk to my darling Piscean. He is always absolutely ace: each…

I created a blog for all my students! :)

You can check it out at the following url: missker.edublogs.org

January has brought a whole lot of things to deal with in my newfound teacher’s life. I had to contend with parents in evenings of wits and unpleasant truths. On the overall, the track record is rather excellent, I daresay. A lot of parents told me that they approved the content of my lessons. Some confessed that I have reconciled their children with English. I felt quite good when I heard this…

IRL, I teach in a high school in Montrouge where one of yesterday’s terrorists attacked took place.

Everyone was still in shock with happened on Wednesday. I spoke with my older classes. We had a debate about freedom of speech, the press and of course Charlie Hebdo. I was pleased to hear that they thought muslim didn’t rhyme with terrorist. Many of my students are actually Muslims despite the…

A Belated Happy New Year!

I was very happy this Christmas because I spent it with my family. Having lived abroad for over 12 years, I haven’t spent Xmas for a while.

It was good to be back home (Britanny) and to see my father & brothers. A typical dinner including shrimps, foie gras and smoked salmon followed by a delicious Yule log.

Now it is time to wish you a Happy New Year!

  My little brother and I

When the Raven meets Homer Simpson

Recently, I taught a 2-part sequence that included the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and an episode of the Simpsons. It was bold and daring to teach the kids an Edgar Allan Poe poem but my students did really well in both classes. I felt elated. I gave them two French translations: one by Baudelaire and another one by Mallarmé.

I started a mind map with both classes and they were pretty knowledgeable…

One of the major themes when you teach in “collège”, in France is Modernity & Tradition. To illustrate this particular theme, I have decided to go down the less travelled road.

My French colleague is studying Maupassant’s fantastic short stories. I decided to do something in correlation to that. We are going to study the poem ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe. I will also show them the famous…

Myrhyn:

I am positively jealous as I would like to play with the shiny Swarovski crystal beads too! :D

Originally posted on Nadia Minkoff London:

Swarovski launch events admittedly are one of the perks of my job. They are always hosted in a beautiful location and I feel like I am surround by boxes of sweets, which are in fact containers full of sparkly crystal- as beautiful as sweets without the…

At the end of next month, two dear friends are getting married. One of them is the excellent owner of my favourite bar in Paris that is called ‘Les Caves Alliées“. Should you ever venture into this bar, there is a strong chance you might meet me :-).

But I digress. The other day while slouching on my sofa with Jay, I noticed that I had become rather sluggish looking. Argh! It was high time to do…

I follow Neil Gaiman on Facebook. It will be no big secret to anyone who knows me a little bit. I have read most of his books such as American Gods, Anansi Boys to name a few. His own website is a very cool ship where you will find all sorts.

I saw he was coming to Paris! I insisted on going with Jay. I told him that he should draw something for Neil Gaiman. Rather incredulous, I could tell that…

Intense Back to School

It has been a rather though ride since the beginning of the school year. I am now a sub teacher in a private school located on the outskirts of Paris. I love the school as it is far enough not to see the students at weekends but close enough to make it an easy commute from home.

I am now teaching 7 classes and 5 different levels. It is a little bit overwhelming in terms of workload as I also have…