Miriam in Dijon: November edition! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in France for two months, and that even though not much has happened, I’ve still managed to occupy my time in such a way that it’s almost surprising that it’s been two months. Since one of my new year’s resolutions for 2020 (hah, jokes) was to write more, I want to keep that goal up by writing at least a monthly update of my experience doing TAPIF this time around, even if there’s not a ton of exciting things to report. As such, I present to you my recap of November!

Welcome to month two in France – a month entirely spent in confinement. On the evening of October 29th, the entire country went into “lockdown lite,” meaning you’re only allowed to leave your house for essential activities, an hour long walk within 1km of your house (this was extended to three hours within 20km on the 28th of November), or work if your job cannot be done from home, for at least four weeks. Unlike the confinement in the spring, schools remained open, which meant that I still got to go to work! Because of this, my days were relatively the same as what they were before confinement, only minus potential weekend excursions to centre ville (which I was able to do at the end of the month to see the holiday decorations around town because of the increase to 20km).

For people not living in France, you might’ve heard about the attestations needed to leave the house. Personally, I feel like people outside France make a bigger deal of this than it actually is, and it’s not an arduous task to do it. The attestation is either a piece of paper, or a QR code on your phone, that outlines why you’re outside of the house. There’s a handy Covid app that the French government wants everyone to download where you can do your attestation in five seconds on your phone (the app also notifies you if you’ve been in contact with someone who tested positive). There are spot checks randomly in France, and you will be fined if you don’t have one filled out, or if you are breaking the terms of the attestation. You have to fill out a new one every time you leave the house, but with the Covid app, it’s super easy to generate a new one whenever you need to go grocery shopping, or want to go for a walk. Luckily, I don’t have to do one every time I go to work because I have a *separate* (this is France, of course), attestation specifically for work that lasts until the end of confinement.

With the confinement elephant out of the room, I can move on to my actual November update! I wish that I had loads of interesting travel tales or exciting things I’ve discovered about Dijon, but rather, my days have been fairly repetitive. Most days are me going to work and coming back to my room, trying to be productive, and utterly failing (finding motivation in general is hard, but throw in the uncertainty of a pandemic and… big oof). On days where I don’t work, I go grocery shopping, do my laundry, or go for a walk to the jardin japonais which is within a 1km radius of where I live. It does make for less than exciting weeks, but there is something reassuring to the known, repetitive schedule. Luckily for me, boulangeries are considered essential, and remain open during confinement (how French). This means that I can go buy a baguette every other day (a full baguette lasts me two days, even if day two means that it isn’t the freshest), and sometimes even treat myself to a pain au chocolat. There are at least seven boulangeries within the 1km radius of where I live, so I’m not lost for choice.

Teaching During Confinement

Like I said, I’m still going to work since schools are still open. One of the big changes for education during the confinement is that the mask requirement was extended to primary schools with students from six and up needing to wear a mask in class – before confinement, the minimum age was 11. Since I work in both a high school and a middle school, I’ve been able to see how government restrictions have (or haven’t) changed the way things are done. In my lycée, the school is now on a hybrid model. This means that every week, the students present at the school varies in order to minimize the number of students present on any given day. The terminales (seniors) are always here, but the premieres (juniors) and secondes (sophomores) are at the school at a 50% capacity each week. Initially, the high schools changed schedules around so that instead of students moving from class to class during passing period, it was the teachers instead, but that only lasted about a week before the hybrid model was put in place. My schedule at the high school, luckily, hasn’t changed much, but instead of having alternating A weeks and B weeks, we now do two of each letter week to ensure that all students get to have that schedule before moving to the next week. It also means that in classes where I worked with half the class while half remained with the teacher, that I’ve had to modify my lesson plans as I either now work in tandem with the teacher, or only have a quarter of a class with me at a time. This scheduling and hybrid model will be in place at least through the 20th of January.

My collège (middle school), is a little different. Since the government’s stance is that high schools have more students, their restrictions and advice for limiting contact between students was only extended to the high schools in the country. As such, my middle school is still at 100% attendance, with students moving between classes, and mingling as much as they would’ve done pre-Covid. The classrooms are usually full, which means little to no distancing between students, and passing periods is a sea of children. From discussions with some of the teachers I work with (and even some of the students), they aren’t a fan of the current model, and some would even prefer schools to shut down entirely. Both of my schools have had cases, and even more students who are cas contacts (this is defined as someone who interacted with/was within 1 meter of someone who was positive for at least 5 minutes, and usually without a mask). Luckily, in both my schools, I have some classes where I work alone, in my own room. As such, I can make sure a window is open, and have fewer students with me.

The Good From the Month of November

I didn’t quite want to replicate my “good, the bad, and the pandemic” format from October, but I do still want to touch on the good things that have happened this month. Even though it’s been confinement, and my freedom to explore has been severely limited, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been able to make the most of my (stuck at home) situation.

As some good news, I finally got my PIN for my bank card! It turns out, I had written my address “wrong,” because I hadn’t included the name of the school where I live in the address. As such, the person delivering the mail didn’t see my name on the mailbox, and didn’t deliver the letter. After fixing that little error, my PIN came quickly and I can finally use my French card. It’s very much a relief and has made my life so much easier this month.

France tip: As soon as you move into wherever you’ll be living in France, put your name on the mailbox. If your name isn’t on the mailbox, the facteur won’t deliver any mail addressed to you! If you live at your school, be sure to include the name of your school in your address (there’s usually a space for a complement de voie when you input in addresses) between your name and the street address to be sure you’ll receive post!

In terms of my living situation, I have settled more into my school provided housing in the last month (part of that being due to the fact that it’s where I’ve spent most of my time, if I’m honest). I’ve put up some personal photos, fairy lights, and embroidery I’ve done (with more on the way), to make the space my own. While it’s still crowded, and contains minimal storage, as Tim Gunn would say (or a variation on what he would say), I’m “mak[ing] it work.” Not to mention that other flats that I’ve looked at or found are the same size as my current living situation, but around three times the price, without considering utilities. I’m not going to lie that my rent price is a big reason for my staying put, even if it’s not an ideal living situation.

My teachers have also been really lovely. I’m very appreciative of the level of communication I have from all of my teachers, and their willingness to answer my questions. They’ve all regularly checked in on me and how I’m doing in confinement, and with my classes. My collège, in particular, has really been looking out for me. Since the beginning, my prof ref has been looking into ways to get me more hours at the school as a way to increase my monthly salary. I knew that this was a possibility, but with everything going on, didn’t expect it to go much further than a brief conversation. True to her word, my prof ref asked about it, and my school was completely onboard with the idea! Since this is France, I had to complete a dossier in order to file the request, but once it was approved, I was able to add additional hours to my schedule, which means an increase in pay as well. The new teachers I’ll be working with kept asking me if adding morning hours was okay with me, and asking if it fit in my schedule, which I found funny considering I have nothing on my schedule other than work at the moment – it’s not as if I could go do things if I had the time! I’m not sure how much additional earnings I’ll be making each month, but something is better than nothing, right? I’ll admit that it does make for long days (I went from working just three hours an afternoon to suddenly starting work at 9:20 and going to 17:20 two days a week), but again, I’ve got nothing else to do, and I get to work with a larger variety of students now.

Another good thing has been my ability to go to the boulangerie all the time. I know I’ve already mentioned it, but I truly relish buying myself a baguette every other day and having that quintessential French food item with my dinners. I feel very French walking down the sidewalk carrying a baguette from a boulangerie – it’s also a great excuse to get some steps in and to go out into the world for a bit given the current restrictions.

Other Observations

Even though my exploration of Dijon has been limited for most of the month to a 1km radius from the school where I live, and the walk to and from the mall where the grocery store is located, I’ve gotten very familiar with the surroundings. One thing on my walks that I noticed (when it was warmer), is that I got much warmer when walking than I feel I normally do. I could walk to the grocery store in late October without a coat because I felt fine (which is very abnormal for my “always cold” self). At first, I attributed it to the fact that I’m wearing a mask when I walk, and that could be contributing a little to me feeling the way that I was, temperature wise. Obviously it’s just something I’ll have to live with but I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me! Not sure if this is the reason, but every time I check my weather app, the humidity is sitting between 80-100%, which is unlike the PNW on SO many levels. I’m not sure *why* Dijon is that humid, considering there are no bodies of water anywhere near the city, but it’s constantly telling me it’s that humid! Even with copious amount of googling, I’ve been unable to find any reasons as to why it’s so humid here, so if anybody has any experience with humidity in Dijon, I am all ears!

The temperatures have also started to drop in Dijon, so we are edging slowly but surely into winter territory. It’s luckily been very sunny most days, and it hasn’t rained in at least a month (knock on wood it stays that way), so at least I’m only dealing with cold on its own. The fact that I will sometimes be walking back from work after the sun has set (which is depressingly early now), means that sometimes I’ve over bundled for my afternoon walk, but I’m dressed perfectly for the evening. Coming from the US, where all you do is dress for the short walk from your car to wherever you’re going, it’s definitely a different mindset when you get dressed every morning here.

The decorations for the holidays are also starting to appear, and with all the stress of 2020, it’s a welcome sight to see all the lights and shimmering decorations up in places. I’ll save most of my photos regarding that for December, but everywhere, from the mall, to the streets of centre-ville, have little splashes of the holidays, which in my mind, is a great pick-me-up, even if just for a second.

Even as restrictions ease slightly in France, there is still very much a pandemic going on, and numbers aren’t in a place to go into déconfinement, yet. My region (Bourgogne-Franche Comté), is doing the worst numbers wise in the country currently – something that started post lockdown – although my département (Côte-d’Or), is at the lower end of the nine départements in the region. It definitely frustrates me to still see people either not wearing a mask properly (I see a lot of noses, even with some students in my schools), or not wearing one at all. I’m hoping the numbers continue to drop, but I’m still very hesitant about it all.

I’m afraid that’s really been my November! Other than the increased stress of being abroad during the election (I had to give several lessons about it, while waiting for results which was fun), this month was fairly lowkey. I’m still discovering new things about my neck of the woods (for instance, when I was told explicitly by my prof ref that I was going to the wrong boulangerie and to go to another one), and getting into a routine for every day. It’s sometimes weird to think that I’m in France currently, and that this is my life for the next couple of months. It’s definitely been a different experience to what TAPIF was like for me in Angers (for more than just the obvious, pandemic reason), and most of the differences have been positive. I’m interested to see how this experience continues to roll out over the next couple weeks before the holiday break, and into the new year!

See you for an update in December! À plus!