#5 you know you’re a french teacher when…

1. you buy literally every single t-shirt with a French word on it. You’re welcome Target, Old Navy, Gap, etc.
2. you receive anywhere from 2-5 Eiffel Tower themed gifts for Christmas or Hanukkah, and your birthday per year.
3. each time you receive the Eiffel Tower themed gift, you screech like a tween at a Justin Timberlake concert. Oops did I just date myself? Tweens probs go to Demi Lovato concerts? I should know – tweens are my daily audience, but honestly I tune them out when they talk about their social life because……. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.
4. you get pissed when the French word on previously mentioned t-shirt is missing an accent or the gender is wrong.
5. you buy the grammatically incorrect shirt anyway….because….who’s really going to know….just don’t wear to any professional development.
6. on your first visit to the Eiffel Tower you saved a piece of toilet paper from the restroom. Calm down…it wasn’t used. Also it was basically like tissue paper because….public bathrooms in France are the WORST. More on that later.
7. you have been to France many times, but still take free maps, postcards, napkins, pamphlets, toilet paper (maybe that’s just me) wherever you go because one day you’re going to make a kick-ass bulletin board that no one will appreciate except for you and possibly the one other French teacher that works part-time at your school if he/she has time to look because they’re busy making their own over-the-top bulletin board made up of all the receipts they saved from their trips to France.
8. the first time you tell people that you teach French, the immediate response is always one of the following: “Oh là là!”, “Ooooh wow.”, “Really?” (eyebrows raised), “Bonjour! I took French in high school, but I don’t remember a thing.”, or “Why French?”
9. whenever it comes up in a conversation that you speak French, someone inevitably says “Okay, so say something to me in French.” and after you do, this person says “Ohhhhh so beautiful/sexy.”
10. you unknowingly give people b*tchy looks when they try to pronounce French words which is actually very French of you, so bravo! That means “good job”…… in French.
11. you set your phone to official time so that you remember how to teach the time after 12 p.m. Why is it so f*cking hard to add 12?!?! If you’re thinking that this is actually not that difficult, then I’m just kidding. If you agree with me….RIGHT?….it’s so difficile! That means “difficult”….in French.
12. you set your phone to official time because you look cooler in social settings.
13. you have an Eiffel Tower on your phone case, laptop sleeve, necklace, car bumper sticker, and/or the coffee mug you use every day.
14. you’re annoyed that everyone thinks the Eiffel Tower is the end-all, be-all monument in France, but yet you still get tears in your eyes every time you see it because it’s what you first loved about France…until you discovered le pain au chocolat and a LEGIT café au lait. That means “chocolate croissant” and “coffee with milk”….in French.
15. you use the word putain under your breath when you’re frustrated in public in America. That means “f*ck, sh*t, really a myriad of things….in French.

This list could and will go on ……. and on…..and it will …. I will add to this list until it is perfection…..because being a French teacher is not just a job, it’s a calling, it’s a religion, it’s a lifestyle. You cannot teach French in the United States of America unless you are just a tiny bit quirky and love to make weird sounds and throat gurgles, an independent thinker, a forever optimist, a lover of all French themed knick-knacks, and a fighter against those who claim that this beautiful, historical, complex language spoken on 5 continents, one of the top 5 languages spoken at the United Nations, and the official language of the Olympics……..is dead.

Au revoir for now….