un miracle de noël

before even looking out the window i knew it had snowed this morning. for one, they've been predicting flurries, not a blizzard, for the past 2 days and two, there was no sun shining through my shutters at 8h30.

the snowfall was nothing substantial (see photos), especially by chicago standards, but it's a lot for rouen apparently and early in the year for this meteorological phenomenon. they maaaybe got an 1/8"!

outside ma windah.

the abbatiale.

when i came home from the gym this morning, about to get into the shower and take the bus out to mont-saint-aignan, i noticed i had a missed call and a voicemail. i listened to the voicemail and it was one of my profs référentes, annie, who told me i shouldn't come to school today because it was "too dangerous in this kind of weather"! WHAT?! so, i called her back thinking she couldn't be serious. but she was! she said it had taken her 2 hours to get to school and hardly any pupils had come. in weather "like this", the buses run infrequently or not at all. i guess they have no public works division that salts and plows the streets plus there are many hills in rouen and its surrounding agglomerations.

DONC, all of my tutoring lessons for today have been canceled, i've been told NOT to come to school today or tomorrow so my christmas break starts RIGHTNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if it only took an 1/8" in chicago for a snowday...sigh...i'm a little sad i didn't get to say goodbye to the students at jean de la varende but, oh well!

christmas cookie baking begins in T-minus 1 hour!

another quick story:

tuesday at english club i had all the kids make christmas wish lists just for fun. i translated what they wanted in english and then they wrote the french equivalents next to them for their parents to read. so, yesterday at the beginning of class, one of the little 5è girls (7th grade) from english club came up to me and handed me her wish list. she had gone home and continued to work on it (without me asking her to) and attempted to translate the rest of her list herself. i was absolutely THRILLED that she did this and she did an excellent job, too! A+ for effort.

so, i'm reading her list outloud and right after her requests for clément garcia to be her boyfriend and some CDs she wrote "and I want (que vous veniez à notre spectacle demain)." she didn't know how to translate it into english but it reads "and I want you to come our pagent tomorrow." as soon as i read that, all the girls in the class were like "YEAH! YEAH! YES, MISS!" so, tonight my roommates and i are going to the 5è classe christmas choral pagent. doesn't that just melt your heart kind of? aww...

❄  ♥ ♥ ♥  ❄