Avengers: Edamame (SPOILERS!)

A number of students spent Thursday night participating in the worldwide film phenomenon that was the release of Avengers: Endgame. Many of them went to the 9PM showing, which meant that they were eventually done with the three hour movie by midnight and home even later.

Not everyone went to the film, and one student told me that when he went to English Conversation class the next morning, upon stating that he liked movies, was immediately presented with a spoiler by an over-eager young French student. Which is why so many people crowd the cinema on opening weekend: so they can just see the movie instead of seeing the movie with someone else's opinion of the movie rattling around in their heads.

In addition to spending Friday morning dodging cinematic revelations, we gathered in a computer lab to work on homework for the next week of classes we'll be missing. These should have been familiar surroundings, except that most keyboards are organized on the principle of not causing typewriters to jam, and therefore are arranged by which letters, punctuation, and symbols most commonly occur in a given language. Much like in French Scrabble, a French keyboard layout is a very different beast than what our students are used to, which some of them learned that morning in a sudden panic. Also: while Windows and Google Chrome generally look the same from computer to computer, remembering all the placement of the menu items becomes critically essential when the computers themselves are in French display mode, because computer vocabulary gets real technical, real fast.

Other things that are real fast and that students needed to dodge were each other, it turned out. Not in a grumpy, anti-social way. At the end of the computer session — which probably could have been more productive, but in addition to plentiful Endgame hangovers, there was also some confusion between the host teachers about an alteration to the day's schedule — we returned to the courtyard to unexpectedly discover we had to wait for the return of our host students from an extended class. The wide-open space beckoned to be filled, and the waiting students threw themselves into the breach with enjoyable abandon.

(Those last two pictures are, respectively, trying to look nonchalant so as not to reveal who is "it", and an amazing attempt at camouflage.)

The epic game of tag ended with a crowd of middle school students descending on Nick, who had earlier put on his aviators and faux-Army Surplus jacket in order to look like a "very beaucoup" cliché American. The small group of students attracted more students curious about what was going on, and it ended with Nick practically giving out autographs.

After lunch, students left for the weekend with strict instructions to keep in touch via mobile and to let the teachers and chaperones know what they were all doing so that we could pass it along to you. Students were asked to, in response to the scheduled series of political protests in various cities around France, stay away from urban areas and to explore in more sedate locations. Since many of their hosts had to take a practice test for the national education exam Saturday morning, that shouldn't prove too difficult to have a quiet day. Subsequently, today has been flooded with a communal series of photos of what weekend meals they have been enjoying or experimenting with, so that's likely to be tomorrow's entry. But here's what we were sent last night:

(B)OOLONG BOWLING!

OTHER STUFF!

THE TWO DOGS WHO HAVE ADOPTED GRIFFIN!

STILL MORE RANDOM ADVENTURES!

I DON'T KNOW WHO THIS FRESH NEW BOYBAND IS, BUT I WANT TO DOWNLOAD THEIR SINGLE

More later: we (read: I) may still need to shake off some post-Avengers doldrums. Oh, and spoilers: I really enjoyed it, and my predictions for the film, while not entirely accurate, were close enough that I feel justified in claiming victory. Take that, Schtroumpfette.