(villefranche-de-rouergue)

Take a look at the title. Ever heard of it? Can you pronounce it? Me neither. 

Well, now I've heard of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, and hopefully soon I'll be able to pronounce it correctly (too many r's and in all the wrong places), because it's the name of the town I'll call home for a year starting in September. V-de-R is a pretty small, remote town of about 12,000  in Southwestern France. And from what I can tell from my "arreté de nomination" (the official notification of my post in France), I'll be responsible for teaching elementary school English, bouncing around among the four elementary schools and trying to develop sufficient classroom management skills to impart at least some basics of our language through lesson plans I'll be making with no teaching background. However it turns out, it will certainly be an adventure. But perhaps job adventures will be the perfect foil to what I assume will be the slower pace of smalltown life. 

It's certainly a far cry from my imagined autumn plans. But that doesn't mean the idea isn't growing on me. In fact, I was pleased to have a facebook message from a complete stranger today who had seen my post about my post in the facebook group. Marika (that's her name) simply sent a message saying that yes, V-de-R is quite small, but she knew someone who had lived there a year and loved it. Which is a great sign, right? And whatever the situation, I'm just thankful to have some more concrete direction to give me outlets (apartment spotting, research, lesson material gathering, etc) through which to fuel the nervous anticipation that's been steadily building since April. 

So. There I'll be soon enough. 

Weird.