The Final Stretch

This is the beginning of the last week at school. The past 7 days have been incredibly busy with barely a moment free. The third week is the most stressful with the largest amount of work. In addition to planning and teaching four new lessons to our students, I had to work on a "one-to-one" project which entailed meeting with a student to assess their level and needs, plan a private lesson, meet again to teach the lesson and then write up an analysis of the whole project. Boy, I wish it had been as easy to do it as it is to explain it! Add into that mix our usual classroom lecture time. This morning many of us were finalizing our reports prior to taking our final grammar exam.
On top of all that, I have been trying to find an apartment in Paris. I went into Paris yestterday and ran all over, connecting with five different places to look. This is not like jumping in a car and driving down the street to look for "for rent" signs. These "rendezvous" came about after countless calls to and from potential roommates or landlords. Then a train ride into the city (but I had to wait for a second train because I didn't have exact change for the ticket machine and the people in the train station were on their lunch break, so, of course, could not give me change or a ticket.) So, when the ticket window opened I was able to get the ticket and finally be on my way. Back and forth, through the Métro stations, up and down the stairs. One apartment was up six flights of stairs, another up four. One Métro station has about 80 steps to climb, and the elevator was broken. By the time I left Paris at almost 8:00 that evening, I was exhausted. AND, I was not able to find a permanent home. I did find a small place to rent for one month as a sublet (the one that is up 4 flights of stairs - no elevator!), so I will have time now, while actually in Paris, to look for a more permanent residence.
So now I am on the downhill slide. The major projects are done, the exams are over, and I have a place to move to next Sunday. I have two more lessons to plan for this week and that's it, other than classroom lectures. Whew!!!! C'est incroyable! I may actually have time to answer emails now.
My next big hurdle is to find a job. The exchange rate between dollars and euros is a killer, so I need to get those euros coming in instead of just going out. I am confident that it won't take too long to get a position in one of the language schools in Paris. I'm also planning to take a quick trip to Germany to visit my niece, Lauren. And, of course, keep looking for that elusive apartment...
At the top of the page are a couple of views from my bedroom window in Tournan, and one of the window itself - it's the upstairs window.