Sunday, July 6, 2008

Heart attack moment

So, since I created this page, I’ve been fairly going out of my mind waiting to hear more info on my French job…in particular, to which city and school I will be assigned. Since I feel like my whole happiness for the next year is dependent upon this information, my patience has begun to run dry. But, I guess hope does spring eternal. I’ve been eagerly checking my mailbox every day (or bugging my roommate to see if she has checked the mail), waiting for the moment that I forget to be hopeful (because surely the letter will come on the day I’m least expecting it, right?).

I had a bit of a heart attack moment the other day. I was at my dreaded Blackberry job, and it was a little slow. I took advantage of the down time to check in on the Assistants in France website, which I hadn’t been able to check for about a week. Well–the shit I had missed!! Apparently, one of the guys assigned to my region had gotten ahold of the email address of the man who’s in charge of us over in France, and had emailed him to ask where the hell our “arrĂȘtes de nomination” were (the docs that tell us our school/city and allow us to apply for our visas). He got an email back in short order saying that our papers had been submitted that very day and should be finding their way to our mailboxes by July 15th-ish. Woo-hoo!! This was very exciting to hear, although not very heart attack-inducing.

The heart attack moment came when I looked further around the website and landed on a page where, after reading the chat, it was obvious some people from my region had apparently gotten a sneak peek of the assignments list. So, they were all whooping it up that they had been assigned to La Rochelle (a seaside resort that is my #2 city choice). Where the fuck did they find this info?? They were just suddenly talking about it on the discussion forums, with no indication of where they had seen the info. I was more than a bit frantic in trying to figure out their source. Eventually, I determined that the list was leaked on our Poitiers 2008-2009 Facebook group page. I immediately violated my company’s internet policy in order to take a quick look at the page. Unfortunately, it was only a list of those who had been assigned to primary schools in La Rochelle.

Crazily enough, the very next day, I got an email from Marjorie (the woman in charge of our program through the French embassy in America). Apparently, she was tired of getting bitchy emails along the lines of “Where the fuck is my letter??”, so she decided to throw all of us a bone and let us know what level of contract we have. I am so happy to report that I will definitely have a *university* level contract, my #1 preference!! I was so worried that I would get a primary level contract and end up being in charge of a writhing mass of snot-nosed French brats every day. Whew! Bullet dodged!

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now…more after I get my letter!