sunshine

I walked into class today a bit late. I had walked rather slowly to campus so that I had an extra minute of soaking in the 60 degrees. We've had sunshine all week, a rare phenomenon in Nancy. I've walked around without a jacket most of the time. A few days included a between-classes lunch hour (or pound cake hour) on the lawn with one of my good friends, Lauren.

This is all to illustrate the mood I was in when I walked into class. While I was unpacking my materials, another student–one of my more animated students whom I can count on to participate–walked in. He started walking back to his seat and casually said, "We should have class outside."

He was joking. French students never expect this to happen. All but one student said they'd never experienced it before. They already think I'm a bit of a Crazy American, which I play up in class to keep them entertained & interested. Before I fully realized what I was saying, I was repacking my materials and leading them down the stairs. Make way for ducklings*.

We had just planted ourselves on the grass, formed a circle and gotten our notebooks out. I was loading clips on my computer & getting out my lesson plan.

Then there was a man behind us, asking if we had any cannabis–not using some slang or subtle word. Directly asking, "Do you have cannabis?" I know my students told them no before starting to laugh, but I didn't quite manage to say anything. I felt so small, tucked up with my legs Indian-style. (Are we not supposed to say that anymore?  Hmm...) I felt my authority melting away. My mouth was hanging open.

We recovered & got through the whole lesson plan, even handling the dictation–an excerpt from a Nelson Mandela clip, which is a difficult accept when you're only in your first year of college–rather well. I decided I wasn't willing to risk it again & had my second class inside. Once was enough. I feel like I've liberated enough French souls for a while.

I know that I'll be spending as much time a possible outside this weekend, assuming the sunshine holds out. I've gotten used to this weather & didn't realize until yesterday evening that spring = rain. I thought we'd skipped right to summer. The flowers are already arriving... Maybe we don't need the April showers? Or maybe they can at least wait until after the weekend, so that I can finish my post-winter thawing?

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