The last week or so...

I have begun to be a bit busier now that I am back in the full swing of school. I start with new classes tomorrow, so I am excited about that little change in my life. I will still only be teaching 12 hours a week, but starting tomorrow, those 12 hours will be concentrated in three straight days from Tuesday to Thursday. Life's tough.
I haven't made a post in a while, I guess because I didn't have a significant adventure to relate, or anything really that was on my mind that was all that profound (I don't want to assume that I what I usually say is profound, but usually I want to write after something has been on my mind for a while). Basically, neither of those things have happened.
Last Friday though, I went to my first Jazz show in Paris. Oh wait, no it was a "boogie woogie" show. I was invited by a somewhat older professor here at the Lycée to go to a Jazz show with her and a couple of her friends. She said it was a "be-bop" show and she knew that I liked jazz so she really hoped I would come along with her. Not having anything else to do on this particular Friday night, I thought what the hell, I can hang out with a couple 55 year old French teachers for a night, as long as I am in for some good Jazz music. Well, as we arrive at the concert hall, the other teacher tells me, she forgot that it is not going to be a jazz show but a "boogie woogie" show. Well, I am here now, so I have to go. I walk in the double doors to this concert hall in the suburbs of Paris, and there before me, is every person in the 91 department (that is my collection of suburbs) who is over the age of 50. I was the youngest person in the concert hall by 25 years. Well, I felt a little awkward but I thought I cant change my circumstances now, and I cant leave because she brought me here by car. The music wasn't all that bad, but I did feel quite awkward in the midst of all these people who were just a wee bit older than I was. I imagine had it been a jazz show, it would have been the same demographic, but still, at least I like jazz music.
Which, actually, brings me to another interesting story from the other day in class. I was super excited because I had prepared this lesson on Billie Holiday and her performance of the poem put to music called "Strange Fruit." It was a whole lesson on the importance of music, and the possibility of change in goodness in people's hearts even in the worst of circumstance. It had to do with America's ability to try and resolve issues between peoples of different backgrounds and ethnicities, and working towards a common goal of freedom for everyone. I was super excited and I explained the context of the song. I handed out lyrics to every kid in the class, oh and this is a "terminalé" class which means they are like 16 or 17. I play the song for them, and I ask, "what do you think? did it move you? can you see how the powerful lyrics and the emotion of the singers voice was able to cause people to reflect on how poorly they had treated each other based on meaningless criteria like race and the color of their skin?" Then one kid looked up and said, "Is this a man or a woman?" and then the next kid, "do you know Michael Jackson?" "What about 50cent?" "What about the game?" And, I quickly realized that the lesson I had created was probably only meaningful to me and a small select group of people and not 16 to 17 year old French kids.