La dernière classe etc.

So, even though I am home now, I want to blog about few things just so I'll have them recorded...

My last Monday in Aix, I went to the theater for my final course with Pelopidas. I thought this would be really sad, but it was actually great. The class met one more time after I left before breaking for Christmas, but since it was my last session, Pelopidas suggested everyone have a drink early to celebrate. He joked it was a new sort of warm-up we were trying to help with our goal of becoming disponible. Also, everybody kept making jokes during the exercises, like when someone looked sad, they'd ask if it was because I was going away, etc. It was such a good ending to the course. I skedaddled quickly afterward to avoid goodbyes, and because I always arrived to Monday dinners a course or two behind anyway. I often managed to do something embarrassing at those dinners because I hadn't seen everyone else be served, most notably once ending up eating out of the serving bowl with the serving spoon...

Initially, the last time I was going to be seeing Pelopidas was when we met to discuss my internship midterm, but then he wanted to interview me about my experience working on the play to add to all of the interviews he's got already. I answered questions in French and then translated my responses into English. He said he might put some of the footage on the new website he's creating, so I told him I'd watch for it. We said à bientôt ("see you soon") instead of au revoir since he's hoping to bring the play to the US sometime this spring or summer with Robert's help. It was a very happy goodbye.

For our last meals, both families made a bit of a celebration with champagne and such. Eloise made cards with cartoon versions of us in an airplane flying away, and we gave the Daniels flowers and Mme Marchetto a tiny santon--a clay figurine that's used in the crèche, the provençale nativity scene. Both families told us to look them up and come for dinner if we're ever in Aix again, and Mme Marchetto wrote us each little notes and asked for our addresses.

Since I whined about missing out on the 13 desserts, I should add there was so much food leftover that everyone was eating for days afterward, and I did get to sample almost everything.