Poisson d'avril

This morning when I woke up and realized that it's the first day of April a couple of things came to mind:

1. Excitement that warmer weather is hopefully around the corner. (But seriously, Michigan, what's with the 80 degree weather this week? Is this some cruel "haha you thought you were getting away from the cold by moving to Paris" joke that the Universe is playing on me or what? FYI: It's freakin' cold here!)
2. Aggravation that I had to pay a whopping 109 euros for my monthly public transportation card this morning. Bye bye newly deposited paycheck...
3. Fear from the sudden realization that I only have two weeks of work left and that I take the GRE in less than two weeks!

When I arrived at JM this morning I kept getting paper fish stuck to my back by the children. I eventually associated this with the fact that today is April Fool's Day, and that coloring fish and sticking them on people must be the French way of celebrating that. They're called the poisson d'avril, and it might be one of the stranger traditions I have encountered in the past seven months.

In the theme of "holy s*** my contract ends this month", I decided to remind the principal and all of the teachers of this fact. The principal had no idea what I was talking about, and one of the teachers seemed so horrified that I'm leaving that she promised to tell the inspectrice that she absolutely needs me to stay for another month and is going to try to get my contract extended. We shall see...

In the meantime I have found some extra work, though it wouldn't possibly be enough to support me without finding something more substantial. I'm pretty determined to drag out this whole living in Paris thing as long as physically possible, though I'm sure my recklessness will have some adverse effects on my financial situation. Oh well... when in Rome, n'est-ce pas?

Last night we all went out for Julie's 24th birthday. Alexis and I kidnapped her and dragged her to see the "How to Become Parisian in an Hour" show that we've all been hearing about. It's a one-man show where the guy makes fun of the differences between tourists (mostly American) and Parisians. It was entirely accurate as well as hilarious. Julie even got pulled on stage!