Jetting Educated

[I am back in England now, of course. I did find this forgotten post, and thought I would publish it posthumously (the season's dead, not me)] On Thursday I will be coming back to England. During the past fortnight especially, I have been really looking forward to getting back. But now that I have done my last shift with the guests I know I'll miss the place, the people ad my great job.         I've been thinking about the start of the season fondly. Looking back on my first week from the distance of the final one is pleasant as it was a time of great adventure, yet so much has changed within that time. When we had just arrived, we were very excited (I was so hyper but trying to keep it on the down low a little since people didn't really know me yet)- a new place to explore with friends we had only known a week. All the had to do on the first week was clean the childcare rooms and play with the toys to, you  know, make sure they weren't bro...

There has always been a slight rivalry in resort between the childcare team and the chalet hosts. Essentially, they don't like that we appear to do less work (mainly because we are always being loud and having fun) and we often envy their shared days off and the huge tips they receive. Thankfully, once we all got to know each other, most of us put these feelings aside and got on well. There were people wouldn't shut up about childcare hours (which actually tend to be very similar to hosts', just at different times) but then some people do love to complain. As self appointed Childcare-Host Relations Officer its been a good season and not too tricky. This week, when we have had to clean up the resort, some of the hosts got a bit personal. I think it was a case of either group not fully understanding that we were both having to do a lot of work, resulting in childcare being called lazy, which made us want to prove them right by not helping. For a collective group wh...

The season is coming to an end and it feels as though its death is an agonising one. I did well to maintain enthusiasm over the last 6 weeks of sunshine and no snowfall. Everybody (save the vampire Lestat) enjoys the sunshine but when you live at 1850 meters and all there is to do is work and ski, you don't always go mad for a constant helping of rays which melt the snow.  We moved the kids to this slope on Monday.  But by Weds, it looked like this. The slopes have now been dalmationised (I just coined that) with many patches of grass, dirt and rock being resurrected all over the mountain. Whilst this looks throrougly horrible off piste, ruining the beautiful uniform whiteness, on the piste it becomes dangerous. If you hit a patch of dirt the likely result is that you will go flying as the skis won't want to move through it and you'll be flung forward. If only one of your skis hits it, the other will keep going and this forces the splits to occur w...

I was thinking recently of what I have learnt from the season, and it has been nice to reflect on it as its been quite long and varied. Its been a great experience but in fairness, I've not learnt too much. Thanks for the makeover kids... not I've never really had to comfort children before, as working in a school everyone is within an environment they are used to and, other than the odd bullying incident, most of my children were happy. Here though, some children cry incessantly for their parents even though they are only away form them for a few hours. It is true that they are doing an exercise that most beginners are shit at, with people they don't know in a new environment. But don't cry about it.           I've learnt a bit about working with younger children, having been with Spritelets (3-5 years) and nursery (4 months- 3 years). Mainly its been reinforced that children like it when you act like an idiot, which I have some experience w...

One of the things that I loved about being a teacher was the relationships that you develop with your kids and how you can progress from being just another adult, to a person who they look up to, respect, and even actually like. Here in La Rosiere I wasn't sure how different it would be with only seeing children for one week. It depends on what shifts I work but I can end up seeing some children quite a bit during their time here and getting to know them. Often, the more I get to know a child or a group of children the more fun the job is. A few weeks back I was working with a 12 year old boy with Down's Syndrome. I went on his skiing lessons and was at his chalet for lunch and high tea (what the company calls dinner time), so I spent loads of time with him.  He was usually not difficult to work with but he had his moments, as every child does. The first shift I spent with him I was telling someone how well behaved he had been, but then I recalled some of the things...

The 'baby listening' shift is something I've mentioned before and its really quite boring. Usually my job involves standing in a circle of children 90 strong and leading songs at the top of my voice, having food with them and stuffing my face whilst telling them shit jokes and schmoozing the parents for tips, or hanging out with them in evening clubs where I make misteltoe hats and biology themed art for my house. Excellent job overall. Excellent apart from the baby listening which has me sitting down for 3 hours outside a child's room whilst the adults eat to make sure that the kids are safe. This Wednesday night had myself and Danni at a chalet called the Braconnier which is where we are stationed to eat with the children this week. I think because the rest of my job is so fun that it makes this shift all the more bland.            If you've been to uni then you know that 'lecture feeling' you can get at times. You can only t...

Today its Valentines day which I think is a bit of a shit celebration. I'm not saying this in a Ted Mosby*-esque 'why can't I find the one' way. I'm not- I'll explain. * How I Met Your Mother My main dislike is that it is a money making, buy-a-crap-card-rather-than-actually-putting-much-effort-in-to-it sort of tradition that people don't know the history of or care about (Tyler's words coming out of my mouth). Just like I hate Easter eggs being sold in January, detracting from the meaning of the celebration with rubbish stuff to buy. The o ther reason is that people feel like they ought to celebrate loving someone on one day- when they should really be doing it all of the time. Again, with some people only buying things out of guilt like those awful 'I love you' teddy bears which actually should read 'I didn't care enough to put much time into a thoughtful present so you've got this bollocks'. The guilting ...

There is a bottle of 45 percent rum underneath my bed. Here it has rested since December 31st, when half of the bottle had either been consumed by myself or awarded to friends. Its pretty disgusting, but I bought it, so I intend to drink it, because wasting alcohol is a sin. However, it now sits there, next to a bottle of J.P Chenet and the dregs of someone's Malibu, untouched, as I am sober for January whilst on a Ski season in France. This marks the  longest period of time that I've not had any alcohol since I was somewhere in 17, which was seven years ago. My initial thought was: its pretty bad that drinking has been such a frequent occurrence in my life. But then who else could say that they've not had any booze in a month unless they were actively avoiding it? (I guess the answer to that is people who don't drink that much!) Having said that, I know I did drink too much. I had not been the 'responsible biologist' that I advocate myself as being...

In training week we chanted: "La Ros, La Ros, La Ros is on Fire". We shouted and screamed it, but we didn't really know why. After being away for 5 weeks and staying in La Rosiere for 4 of them, I think I'm getting it... Living here is not like real life, it feels different. I'm not sure why but I'm trying to put my finger on it. My job is quite easy, that's probably a start, but I'll talk more about that later . Its possibly the extremely social lifestyle where you're at work all day with the same people you live with and so are constantly surrounded. Or that, alongside this, the unusual or chatworthy tales that occur on a daily basis; its hard to keep up sometimes. Indeed, not seeing someone for just a day can feel like quite a while, like you've probably missed out on something. Either way, its like being part of a living Soap Opera- things are always happening. Everyone gets in everyone else's business, people are very inquis...

I have just begun working a ski season in the French Alps, but there's just one problem: No snow, no snow, no snow. No snow to the extent that on set-up week when we cleaning the toys before the first children arrived, we were outside the Snow Club in t-shirts with sun cream on. Sweet! That was fine as I hadn't rented skis yet, but since getting some kit and dying to hit slope, it was discovered a fair amount of ice hanging around on the piste. It was like that kid at school who thinks he's your mate but you don't really want him loitering around you (was probably me at school). Thankfully Christmas Eve was just like in the movies and it was kind of a joyous occasion. This feeling was aided by the fact I watched Die Hard, on the 25th anniversary of the events at Nakatomi Plaza :) so good times all around. I did not ski on Christmas but on boxing day it was the clearest day of the season and the snow was beautiful. "This is the reason I live in the Alps...

Just a quick one as its fairly mental here with not much time being spent on the computer. We are focusing on learning about our jobs, making friendships, having fun and trying not to get sent home before we even start the season. (I think five people have been booted already).  We have been here for a few days, and this coming Monday we will be heading off to our resort of La Rosiere. My initial feelings are that is going to be an amazing experience- its like being at uni for the first time, with a few differences. The similarities are easy to spot; we are a group of people from a range of backgrounds, thrown in to an unfamiliar location, who know that we are going to be spending a lot of time together in the future. I would say that the biggest difference to the first week of uni is the lack of drinking. There is a bar where we are staying but I have been having about one beer a night  (and bear in mind this is a modest 25cl in France). This is re...