Animals

Animals in general have been an experience all their own! I was driving home from the store on a Saturday around lunch time and I saw two guys in their 40s or 50s - both dressed pretty well (button up shirt and pants and a light jacket) one with a bottle of wine and one carrying a rabbit by either its ears or legs.  Yep, just walking along carrying a rabbit here; nothing special.

On the road to town there is a parking area which is closed during the off season.  Since then I've seen the parking lot crowded with geese and then a few weeks later it was crowded with sheep.  I'm not sure what happened to the geese or where these sheep came from, but that's just what it is.

On the way to our friends house in Montelimar, we were on a major road  (2 lanes each way) and one of the overhead LED warning signs said "Animaux errants" the best translation is probably something like "wild animals on the road".

On the same trip, we were driving along and a guy flashed me his high beams.  I realized ahead of me on the side was a random donkey.  So I slowed down and as I passed the donkey he began to chase the car, so I sped up to get away from him.  So how fast are you suppose to go when passing a donkey?  I don't remember learning that in driver's ed.

Growing up in PA and having enjoyed our time on the Big Island (where I successfully dodged a wild hog), I am still surprised by the animals here and how we interact with them.  But generally the idea is be nice to the animal so they can grow up to be strong and healthy....that way we can eat them!  Did I mention the vast selection of different animals at the store?  Yummy!

rulers

Every good little French student has at least one ruler in his/her trousse.  The ruler is not just for math. The ruler is used at any and all times that necessitate a line.  A STRAIGHT line.  My students spend so much time using their rulers that I think it is the main reason why we never get through what I had planned for the class.  I quickly underline a word on the board, they get out their rulers.  I draw a quick box around a word, they draw four perfect lines around it.  Don't even consider having them do a matching or connect-the-dots activity...yep, rulers required!  At one point, frustrated by the wasting of precious time, I asked them why they had to use a ruler and if they could just quickly draw a line (their notebooks ARE lined, after all...) "Mais Madame, ce n'est pas joli comme ça!"  Yep, from their very first year of school, these kids are instructed to use rulers any time that they are required to draw a line...
Besides making perfectly straight and joli lines, rulers make excellent swords.  But, of course!  I confiscate at least one ruler per day.  It's not the embarrassment of having your ruler confiscated that teaches them a lesson, it's the fact that they will have to spend the rest of the day without a ruler and, gasp!, they will have lines that are pas joli in their notebooks!!  Most students do not need to have their ruler confiscated twice!  Once, after I took a ruler from a student, he calmly took a new shiny one out of his backpack.  Whew!  Uneven lines averted!  No, I took that one too :)