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...

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...

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...

After some people have said that I don't really talk about what I'm doing for work on my travels, I am going to talk about my job in childcare in La Rosiere, and why I love it. In summary, it rocks. In exchange for looking after children and being as noisy as they are, I get all the food I want, accommodation and a lift pass for the St. Bernardo area so that I can ski in France as well as Italy.          Plus I get a few hundred pounds a month which I barely need to touch since I'm not drinking this month (shock horror). The pros aren't without the cons but overall I can't see how anyone could dislike it here. At the momet I'm sitting on a coach with a thermos of hot chocolate and I'm actually doing my second job, which is transfer repping. I take guests from resort to airport, pick up new ones and return. Its not always as smooth as that but its generally  a good way to spend transfer day (it certainly beats cleaning the play rooms or doing...

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...