Yesterday I was planning to get on the computer after supper, but StarMania was on TV and it was supposed to be awesome, so I watched that with my family instead. It turned out to be a bunch of famous singers performing different songs and then talking about them and stuff. I dunno, I didn't recognize any of the singers but Gregoire. It was entertaining, though.
To fill you in, yesterday morning I worked on my French a little. Then after lunch, Pierre and I played in the backyard for a while , before going over to Pierre-Antoine's house. There, we helped him trim the bushes and then we just talked over a glass of Coke. His dad gave me a cool pen with the Arras symbol on it, and his mom gave me a really good smelling flower that is usually given on May 1st. I don't remember what it's called, but I think it started with an M. Anyway, after we came home, I started getting my clothes together for packing.
Today, I slept in and then packed. Our train leaves tomorrow at noon, so that's all I've been doing so far. haha. I'm going to try and take my small suitcase instead of my huge one, so I've been folding and rolling and stuffing things in every little space possible. Once we get to Perpignan (or actualy, a smaller town a little ways away), we're staying in a mobile home, so I can take everything out of my suitcase. It only has to fit in there on the way down and then again on the way back! lol!
The rest of the day will be spent packing and shopping for things we need. I'm not sure how long we will have, but I'm going with my host mom around 2:30 or so and I'm hoping to find a pair of sunglasses. I was an idiot and didn't even think to bring a pair with when I left Fargo in January. It doesn't really matter, though. If I don't find a pair today, I'll buy some when I get down there or when we go shopping in Spain. Supposedly, things are pretty cheap there because they don't have as much tax or something like that.
And if I need to state the obvious, I don't think I will have computer access, so don't expect another post until May 3rd or 4th, depending on how tired I am. Also, I'll probably have a hell of a lot written in my journal at the end of the week, so I'm not going to type it all up. I don't have that kind of time or patience. haha. I'll probably just hilight some of the main points and leave it at that.
Have a good rest of the month everyone!
I'll talk to you laterrr :)!
<3Miranda
Phrase of the Day: "Train train quotidien" = A French expression meaning the same thing day after day. I learned that one from Pierre-Antoine's dad yesterday.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
80 Days
I have tan linesss! I didn't notice until last night, but I got a little sun at the beach yesterday! woooh! Unfortunately, I'm still pretty white. haha. That will hopefully change next week, though!
Anyway, today I slept in a while. Then when I did finally get up, I took my time getting ready. Pierre and I hung out for a while, then Pierre-Antoine and Antoine stopped by to get the key from my host mom to the city warehouse. Pierre and I went with them to the warehouse to see the giant. I think I already explained this, but at some point in May, the giant will come out and there will be a little festival thing and whatnot. I'm not exactly sure what all goes on, but I will let you know when the day comes. Anyway, back on topic, we went to the warehouse and the giant's neck was broken. haha. They ended up pulling his head off and Antoine put it in his trunk. They're going to fix it up and then bring it back and reattach the head at a later time.
Pierre and I returned home and I read one whole page of my book (made a lot of progress there, huh? :P)! haha. I honestly am not motivated enough to read this thing. It's way longer than Manon Lescaut and I just don't feel like it! I know I'm not going to finish it and I don't really care how far I get. Besides, I would rather spend my time doing other things. When I have downtime, I normally plan on reading, but end up doing some pages in my French workbook or listening to music instead. I don't care about some smelly town and some insane mother. The French curiculum is no more exciting than the English one in Fargo. All the literature is so dry. ugh. It makes me not want to read more than it gets me interested in reading. haha. But I'll be done ranting, now. At around 6, my host mom and I went over to Thomas's house to watch the kids. Romane just got Zoo Tycoon and was busy on the computer the whole time. I played with her a little, but Lou-Marie had a tonn of energy and was insistant on tickling me. I got her pretty good, though, and then she was even more wound up! haha. Anne and Thomas weren't gone long, and when the returned, my host mom and I returned home. We ate supper in front of the TV because Desperate Housewives was on (and we can't miss an episode of that!). Then I got on the computerr.
Tomorrow I don't think we have any plans. I'll let you know what happens.
au revoirr!
<3Miranda
French Word of the Day: une(?) poussette = a stroller
Anyway, today I slept in a while. Then when I did finally get up, I took my time getting ready. Pierre and I hung out for a while, then Pierre-Antoine and Antoine stopped by to get the key from my host mom to the city warehouse. Pierre and I went with them to the warehouse to see the giant. I think I already explained this, but at some point in May, the giant will come out and there will be a little festival thing and whatnot. I'm not exactly sure what all goes on, but I will let you know when the day comes. Anyway, back on topic, we went to the warehouse and the giant's neck was broken. haha. They ended up pulling his head off and Antoine put it in his trunk. They're going to fix it up and then bring it back and reattach the head at a later time.
Pierre and I returned home and I read one whole page of my book (made a lot of progress there, huh? :P)! haha. I honestly am not motivated enough to read this thing. It's way longer than Manon Lescaut and I just don't feel like it! I know I'm not going to finish it and I don't really care how far I get. Besides, I would rather spend my time doing other things. When I have downtime, I normally plan on reading, but end up doing some pages in my French workbook or listening to music instead. I don't care about some smelly town and some insane mother. The French curiculum is no more exciting than the English one in Fargo. All the literature is so dry. ugh. It makes me not want to read more than it gets me interested in reading. haha. But I'll be done ranting, now. At around 6, my host mom and I went over to Thomas's house to watch the kids. Romane just got Zoo Tycoon and was busy on the computer the whole time. I played with her a little, but Lou-Marie had a tonn of energy and was insistant on tickling me. I got her pretty good, though, and then she was even more wound up! haha. Anne and Thomas weren't gone long, and when the returned, my host mom and I returned home. We ate supper in front of the TV because Desperate Housewives was on (and we can't miss an episode of that!). Then I got on the computerr.
Tomorrow I don't think we have any plans. I'll let you know what happens.
au revoirr!
<3Miranda
French Word of the Day: une(?) poussette = a stroller
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
81 Days
I got up this morning and started getting ready at around 8:00. Somewhere around 10:00, Pierre, my host mom, and I headed north! Our first stop was at the beach of "la mer du nord" which I am pretty sure means the English Channel. We met up with Simon there, and he showed us the way to their campsite in a town called St. Cécile. He, Claire, Lola, and Marius are camping out there, so we paid them a visit for lunch. After eating, they joined Pierre, my host mom, and I at Berck, which was only about an hour away. This week in Berck, there is a huge international kite festival on the beach. We watched the kites from the road for a while, and then I went to meet up with the AFS crew. We had a "meeting" today. I really don't know if I can even call it that, because we basically just got together and talked & played a ball game on the beach. The adults didn't even come with us. Unfortunately, my camera battery died, so I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked, but I got a few of the kites!
Anyway, after playing a tag-like game with the volleyball and talking a ton, we met back up with the adults for snack. The get together was pretty much over, so my host mom and I said goodbye and met back up with the others on the beach. While I was away, Thomas and his family had arrived. Romane was digging a huge hole (trying to get down to the water) and Lola, Lilian, and Lou-Marie were throwing handfulls of sand back in. Romane asked me to help her, so I did, and I got sand thrown all over my hair and down my shirt and pants and everywhereee! Ickk. That was uncomfortable for the ride home! Speaking of which, when the time came to leave (a little before 7), we made our way back to the car and headed out. The kites were almost all taken down for the night, so everyone was leaving at the same time. That caused quite a traffic backup on the road. I noticed a sign that read ARRAS: 91KM soon after getting on the road, and an HOUR later, the traffic started getting better and I saw a sign that read ARRAS: 89KM! That should give you an idea of how slowww we were moving! It was crazy! Like I said, though, about an hour later, the roads started clearing up and we were able to move at a normal speed. When we finally got home, we ate a quick supper and then my host mom & Pierre went to watch TV and I got on the computer. I really would watch TV, except I still can't understand it! I don't know exactly why the TV is so much harder than in person or on the radio, but in order for me to comprehend some, the volume needs to be super loud. That's why I think I'm okay when I go to movies in the theater. I can hear all the syllables and articulation and everything better. I sometimes have Pierre turn up the volume here, but he doesn't like it loud, so whatever. I'm not a big TV show person anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
Tomorrow should be pretty relaxed. I get to sleep in again, then the only thing planned is shopping in the afternoon. We're going to buy things we need before going south to Perpignan on Sunday.
I'll update you tomorrow!
<3miranda
Oh! I almost forgot! In the car today, I got a really cool idea! Well, it's not really that original or anything, but I decided I'm going to have a French word/phrase of the day at the end of my posts for now on. That way, when I come home and I am speaking franglais like maddd, you might be able to pick up on a couple things! haha.
Today's word: un cerf volent = a kite.
Anyway, after playing a tag-like game with the volleyball and talking a ton, we met back up with the adults for snack. The get together was pretty much over, so my host mom and I said goodbye and met back up with the others on the beach. While I was away, Thomas and his family had arrived. Romane was digging a huge hole (trying to get down to the water) and Lola, Lilian, and Lou-Marie were throwing handfulls of sand back in. Romane asked me to help her, so I did, and I got sand thrown all over my hair and down my shirt and pants and everywhereee! Ickk. That was uncomfortable for the ride home! Speaking of which, when the time came to leave (a little before 7), we made our way back to the car and headed out. The kites were almost all taken down for the night, so everyone was leaving at the same time. That caused quite a traffic backup on the road. I noticed a sign that read ARRAS: 91KM soon after getting on the road, and an HOUR later, the traffic started getting better and I saw a sign that read ARRAS: 89KM! That should give you an idea of how slowww we were moving! It was crazy! Like I said, though, about an hour later, the roads started clearing up and we were able to move at a normal speed. When we finally got home, we ate a quick supper and then my host mom & Pierre went to watch TV and I got on the computer. I really would watch TV, except I still can't understand it! I don't know exactly why the TV is so much harder than in person or on the radio, but in order for me to comprehend some, the volume needs to be super loud. That's why I think I'm okay when I go to movies in the theater. I can hear all the syllables and articulation and everything better. I sometimes have Pierre turn up the volume here, but he doesn't like it loud, so whatever. I'm not a big TV show person anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
Tomorrow should be pretty relaxed. I get to sleep in again, then the only thing planned is shopping in the afternoon. We're going to buy things we need before going south to Perpignan on Sunday.
I'll update you tomorrow!
<3miranda
Oh! I almost forgot! In the car today, I got a really cool idea! Well, it's not really that original or anything, but I decided I'm going to have a French word/phrase of the day at the end of my posts for now on. That way, when I come home and I am speaking franglais like maddd, you might be able to pick up on a couple things! haha.
Today's word: un cerf volent = a kite.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
82 Days
First of all, yesterday I spent the entire afternoon at Orane's house. Her sister took some pictures of us in their backyard, then their mom went to print those and the rest of us started scrapbooking. Normally, I suck at that kind of thing. I have no eye for arranging colored paper and photos with stickers and stamps to create something pretty. I've only scrapbooked a couple times previously and those pages are nothing to brag about. Not going to lie, though, yesterday I did an awesome job. I'm pretty proud of what I did. I'll have to admit, I didn't come up with the idea by myself (I found an example in a book), but I reproduced it really well! I used the pictures I took in Normandy of the sailboat races and made a circular design with them.. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but if you want to see it, I can show it to you when I come home. Just ask :)!
Today, I started my book for French class. It's called, La Parfum. So far, I've got one chapter down and all that has happened is that the town and everything in it smells. Then a baby was born and his mother didn't care about him. She was just determined to find a fish or something.. she spent everyday with a knife in her hand searching for this fish. Haha. I don't know if I understood that right because it sounds really bizzare, but than again, it's one of those old books and those tend to be a little weird.. Anyway, after I got my ass outa bed around 11:00, I got ready and ate breakfast. It wasn't much later before Romane came over. Pierre and I were going to watch her this afternoon. After eating lunch, we played spies. That game lasted the entireee day. I forget how creative little kids are. We had a bad witch and a good witch who lived in different trees in the backyard. Our headquarters was located in Pierre's room. He had a bunch of spy things for us to use, so each of us had a gun, and sunglasses, and Pierre and I each had walkie talkies. Romane and I were always together, so I shared mine with her. I also had a toy camera and a little container for all the evidence and little things we found. We had a clubhouse in the back corner of the backyard, too. We went in and out of the house chasing up and killing the bad guys. The mean witch, of course, was their leader. The nice witch was on our side and she gave us potions for when we were injured and warned us of the other witch's evil plans. Haha. It was really fun, actually!! I miss being a little kid! I used to play games like that all the time! lol! I don't have as much energy for that anymore, though, and playing all afternoon (from one to six) got really tiring! lol!
We took a short break around four to have a snack. We made verrines with fruit, cool whip, nutella, chocolate chips, coconut, almond dust, etc. In mine, I started with bananas at the bottom, then added a layer of nutella. After that, I added strawberries to a couple (there weren't very many) before adding a nice big dallop of cool whip! I sprinkled on some chocolate chips and added coconut and almond dust on top of that. Daayum was thatt good! I would definitely recommend trying that sometime!
Anne came to get Romane around 6:00. After that we took Pierre to the kiné. We waited there with him until he finished. Since we've come home, nothing overly interesting has happened. Tomorrow we're going up north by the English Channel to a town called Burck. I don't know if that's how it's spelled exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's close. There is a kite festival going on right now and we're having our AFS gathering there. Our families are invited this time as well, so my host mom, Pierre, and Thomas's family will be coming with. I heard that Pierre-Antoine and Antoine are going too, but they aren't with us, so I dunno. We'll probably see them, though.
j'écrirai encore demain soir!
bisous!
-miranda
Today, I started my book for French class. It's called, La Parfum. So far, I've got one chapter down and all that has happened is that the town and everything in it smells. Then a baby was born and his mother didn't care about him. She was just determined to find a fish or something.. she spent everyday with a knife in her hand searching for this fish. Haha. I don't know if I understood that right because it sounds really bizzare, but than again, it's one of those old books and those tend to be a little weird.. Anyway, after I got my ass outa bed around 11:00, I got ready and ate breakfast. It wasn't much later before Romane came over. Pierre and I were going to watch her this afternoon. After eating lunch, we played spies. That game lasted the entireee day. I forget how creative little kids are. We had a bad witch and a good witch who lived in different trees in the backyard. Our headquarters was located in Pierre's room. He had a bunch of spy things for us to use, so each of us had a gun, and sunglasses, and Pierre and I each had walkie talkies. Romane and I were always together, so I shared mine with her. I also had a toy camera and a little container for all the evidence and little things we found. We had a clubhouse in the back corner of the backyard, too. We went in and out of the house chasing up and killing the bad guys. The mean witch, of course, was their leader. The nice witch was on our side and she gave us potions for when we were injured and warned us of the other witch's evil plans. Haha. It was really fun, actually!! I miss being a little kid! I used to play games like that all the time! lol! I don't have as much energy for that anymore, though, and playing all afternoon (from one to six) got really tiring! lol!
We took a short break around four to have a snack. We made verrines with fruit, cool whip, nutella, chocolate chips, coconut, almond dust, etc. In mine, I started with bananas at the bottom, then added a layer of nutella. After that, I added strawberries to a couple (there weren't very many) before adding a nice big dallop of cool whip! I sprinkled on some chocolate chips and added coconut and almond dust on top of that. Daayum was thatt good! I would definitely recommend trying that sometime!
Anne came to get Romane around 6:00. After that we took Pierre to the kiné. We waited there with him until he finished. Since we've come home, nothing overly interesting has happened. Tomorrow we're going up north by the English Channel to a town called Burck. I don't know if that's how it's spelled exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's close. There is a kite festival going on right now and we're having our AFS gathering there. Our families are invited this time as well, so my host mom, Pierre, and Thomas's family will be coming with. I heard that Pierre-Antoine and Antoine are going too, but they aren't with us, so I dunno. We'll probably see them, though.
j'écrirai encore demain soir!
bisous!
-miranda
Monday, April 20, 2009
83 Days
Today is the half-way marker. I've been here 83 days and I have 83 left to go! Time has been flying by soo fast! July will be here before I know it. :/!
Anyway, today I feel a lot better. There is a tiny bit of tingling left on my fingers from the "oteille(?)" plant and my muscles in my legs and shoulders are still a little stiff. Other than that, though, I feel pretty good! This afternoon I am going to go to Oranne's house and scrapbook with her. I didn't have any photos printed off, so this morning I went with Oranne and her mom to a kiosk in the store. Oranne and I both printed our photos. I got 20 prints and it only cost me €5! We looked at electronics for the hour while our photos were being processed. I found you an alarm clock, Rica! I would have bought it today except for the fact that Oranne pointed out the pluggg! It's different here, so unless you have a converter, it won't work in the States. Do you still want it?
Anywayss, after receiving our pictures, Oranne's mom dropped me off at home for lunch. I'm going back in about 15 minutes for the scrapbooking part. That should be less demanding than the bike ride, I hope! haha. Hopefully this doesn't come with any surprises.
I'll let you know how it all goes tomorrow.
Bon journée!
<3Miranda
Anyway, today I feel a lot better. There is a tiny bit of tingling left on my fingers from the "oteille(?)" plant and my muscles in my legs and shoulders are still a little stiff. Other than that, though, I feel pretty good! This afternoon I am going to go to Oranne's house and scrapbook with her. I didn't have any photos printed off, so this morning I went with Oranne and her mom to a kiosk in the store. Oranne and I both printed our photos. I got 20 prints and it only cost me €5! We looked at electronics for the hour while our photos were being processed. I found you an alarm clock, Rica! I would have bought it today except for the fact that Oranne pointed out the pluggg! It's different here, so unless you have a converter, it won't work in the States. Do you still want it?
Anywayss, after receiving our pictures, Oranne's mom dropped me off at home for lunch. I'm going back in about 15 minutes for the scrapbooking part. That should be less demanding than the bike ride, I hope! haha. Hopefully this doesn't come with any surprises.
I'll let you know how it all goes tomorrow.
Bon journée!
<3Miranda
Sunday, April 19, 2009
84 Days
I didn't write yesterday, and I appologize, but after I tell you what I did, you will understand why!
The morning was alright. I completed a few lessons in my French workbook and then hung out with Pierre a little. At around two o'clock, Oranne came to pick me up for a "nice" bike ride. I'm really not a bike person. Prior to this, I hadn't been on a bike in yearsss! In fact, I don't even own a bike anymore! I expected it to be a nice, easy ride so I thought I could give it a shot. I figured it would be a good way to get to know people. Oranne didn't tell me to bring anything, so I was stupid enough to leave without even a water bottle. We went to her house where I got a bike to use. Then we went to meet everyone else at Kamille's house. Everyone was dressed in sweatpants and layers and had backpacks full of snacks and water bottles. I felt like I was getting in a little over my head. There were nine of us total, and after everyone had arrived, we started out. My calves were burning after the first half hour. Almost everything was uphill. It was terrrrrible! We took a short break. I could barely walk. Meline gave me some of her water and then we started out again. After consistantly going up, I couldn't take it any longer. My English started erupting from my mouth and I was swearing like you don't even know. I don't think many people heard me, but Oranne picked up on it. We took another break and everyone had snacks to share. Well, everyone except me. I still got to eat, though. I just felt bad for not getting the memo and bringing something to share. Anyway, after that, Oranne told me we were not even at the half way mark yet. That really pissed me off! She told me we were getting close, but would probably not be there for another half hour or so. To make things worse, we went onto a dirt trail. It had rained yesterday morning, so this trail was no longer dirt, but mud and goop and puddles and it was just nasty. My bike tires got clogged and I had to get off my bike to push it through. There was muckk sprayed all over my back and up my legs. My seat got mud on it and therefore so did my ass. There was mud in my hair and on my face and I don't think there were many places that weren't spattered with crap. Ugh. It was horrible. If I would have known the way, I would have turned back right then and there. I actually debated calling my host mom and having her pick me up. I just didn't know how to describe where I was. We were in the middle of a feild of some kind of crop far out of town. I was dyinggg I hurt so bad. My legs, my arms, my shoulders, my chest, my ass (because of the seat!), everything was burninggg. I haven't done much of any excercise in a long time, so this was quite the workout. It made me realize how out of shape I am. Well, actually, at the next pause, Oranne checked my speed gage thingamajig and asked me why I had it set at 3 and 8. I had thought that the higher numbers were for going uphill and the lower numbers were for going downhill; I guess it's the inverse! I about strangled someone when I found out I'd been working 8 times as hard as necessary! Gahhhh! I seriously thought I was going to dieeee! We had been going uphill almost the whole way, tooooo! I am sooo dumb. I can see my dad laughing right now as he reads this, but it is nott funny!!! I could hardly breathe!! After the halfway mark, I got everything straightened out and things got a little better. It didn't help that I already felt like dying, though. We continued through the mud for another couple hours. Then we walked our bikes up a steep grassy hill and took another break. This break lasted about a half hour or so. I thought I was well rested until I couldn't stand up. haha. We only had about an hour and a half left and most of it would be downhill, so that was motivating. I'd have to say I actually enjoyed that hour and a half, too! We went through a town called Vimy where there is a monument dedicated to the Canadians for aiding the French during WW1. There are also a bunch of trenches and they were all fenced off because there are still explosives underground that haven't been found! When we finallyy got back to Roclincourt, I learned that we had biked 35KM! I don't know exactly how many miles that is, but I think it's somewhere around 20? It felt like wayy more than that! Anyway, I dropped the bike off at Oranne's house, said goodbye, and then walked home. It wasn't far, but it took me forever to get there. My hair, skin, and clothes were filthy, so I took a shower and changed before going to the fair with Pierre and my host mom. Going up the stairs to my room was a struggle, though. I nearly had to stop in the middle and catch my breath. Then on the way down, my thighs gave out and I fell a little! haha. That's embarrassing.
A half hour later, we went to the fair. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of walking. My host mom promised we wouldn't stay too long. Pierre and I went on one ride. It was okay, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd have been in the mood. Then we played a few games. I shot a BB gun at balloons that were blowing around in a cage thing and I popped all of them but 1! That wasn't worth a prize, thoughhh! You have to get them all or you get nothing. We played a couple other games and Pierre ringtossed himself a portable radio. That was the only thing we won, though. After that, we went to the fair restaurant for supper. I TRIED ESCARGOT! And I liked it, a lot :D! It took me longer than a minute to get the first snail out of its shell, and it really did not look appatizing, but it tasted yummy! I ate all 12 of them, and would definitely order that again. The next thing on my list is "cuise de grenoille" (aka frog legs). Needless to say, when we got home I was so tired I went straight to bed. I took some tylonal for my muscles, though, because I was expecting to be stiff today.
This morning, my throat and chest (as well as my butt and legs) were killing me! I actually was still having a hard time breathing and every move I made felt like a workout. Hah. I really overworked myself yesterday. For lunch today, Thomas and his family, Simon and his family, Annick, and Grandma all came over. I helped my mom with the meal and I made the "verrines." I don't know what that translates to in English, but they are little glasses with different things (like salad, tomatoes, tuna, a sauce, etc) piled on top of each other in layers. Since Thomas's kids weren't here for Easter, we had another egg hunt :)! Pierre and I hid the eggs and candies in the yard and I unfortunately stuck my hand into a bad plant. It made my skin burn and gave me puffy white blotches on my fingers where I'd touched it. My host mom put vinegar on it and then I washed my hands with cold water. She said the pain and spots would go away on its own after a while. That was at one. It's now 7:30 and my skin still tingles. The spots are gone and it doesn't burn as bad, but it is still uncomfortable. Although with how bad the rest of my body hurts, it really doesn't make that big of a difference.
After all the kids had arrived and the candy had been scattered about, the hunt began. I took a couple pictures and will post those maybe Thursday? I have plans tomorrow and Wednesday, so we'll see. I haven't got the time right now. It didn't take long before everything was found. The kids ate their lunch and then I served my verrines. They were pretty good! I made a few different kinds, but the one I ate had pears on the bottom, then tuna, lettuce, and a sauce on top. I don't really know what the sauce was because my host mom made it, but it went really well with the rest. After the kids were done (and two glasses were broken), the rest of us ate. It took the rest of the afternoon to get through all the courses and to finish talking and whatnot. After everyone left, I got on the computer.
Et voila! That's all for today!
a demain!
<3Miranda
The morning was alright. I completed a few lessons in my French workbook and then hung out with Pierre a little. At around two o'clock, Oranne came to pick me up for a "nice" bike ride. I'm really not a bike person. Prior to this, I hadn't been on a bike in yearsss! In fact, I don't even own a bike anymore! I expected it to be a nice, easy ride so I thought I could give it a shot. I figured it would be a good way to get to know people. Oranne didn't tell me to bring anything, so I was stupid enough to leave without even a water bottle. We went to her house where I got a bike to use. Then we went to meet everyone else at Kamille's house. Everyone was dressed in sweatpants and layers and had backpacks full of snacks and water bottles. I felt like I was getting in a little over my head. There were nine of us total, and after everyone had arrived, we started out. My calves were burning after the first half hour. Almost everything was uphill. It was terrrrrible! We took a short break. I could barely walk. Meline gave me some of her water and then we started out again. After consistantly going up, I couldn't take it any longer. My English started erupting from my mouth and I was swearing like you don't even know. I don't think many people heard me, but Oranne picked up on it. We took another break and everyone had snacks to share. Well, everyone except me. I still got to eat, though. I just felt bad for not getting the memo and bringing something to share. Anyway, after that, Oranne told me we were not even at the half way mark yet. That really pissed me off! She told me we were getting close, but would probably not be there for another half hour or so. To make things worse, we went onto a dirt trail. It had rained yesterday morning, so this trail was no longer dirt, but mud and goop and puddles and it was just nasty. My bike tires got clogged and I had to get off my bike to push it through. There was muckk sprayed all over my back and up my legs. My seat got mud on it and therefore so did my ass. There was mud in my hair and on my face and I don't think there were many places that weren't spattered with crap. Ugh. It was horrible. If I would have known the way, I would have turned back right then and there. I actually debated calling my host mom and having her pick me up. I just didn't know how to describe where I was. We were in the middle of a feild of some kind of crop far out of town. I was dyinggg I hurt so bad. My legs, my arms, my shoulders, my chest, my ass (because of the seat!), everything was burninggg. I haven't done much of any excercise in a long time, so this was quite the workout. It made me realize how out of shape I am. Well, actually, at the next pause, Oranne checked my speed gage thingamajig and asked me why I had it set at 3 and 8. I had thought that the higher numbers were for going uphill and the lower numbers were for going downhill; I guess it's the inverse! I about strangled someone when I found out I'd been working 8 times as hard as necessary! Gahhhh! I seriously thought I was going to dieeee! We had been going uphill almost the whole way, tooooo! I am sooo dumb. I can see my dad laughing right now as he reads this, but it is nott funny!!! I could hardly breathe!! After the halfway mark, I got everything straightened out and things got a little better. It didn't help that I already felt like dying, though. We continued through the mud for another couple hours. Then we walked our bikes up a steep grassy hill and took another break. This break lasted about a half hour or so. I thought I was well rested until I couldn't stand up. haha. We only had about an hour and a half left and most of it would be downhill, so that was motivating. I'd have to say I actually enjoyed that hour and a half, too! We went through a town called Vimy where there is a monument dedicated to the Canadians for aiding the French during WW1. There are also a bunch of trenches and they were all fenced off because there are still explosives underground that haven't been found! When we finallyy got back to Roclincourt, I learned that we had biked 35KM! I don't know exactly how many miles that is, but I think it's somewhere around 20? It felt like wayy more than that! Anyway, I dropped the bike off at Oranne's house, said goodbye, and then walked home. It wasn't far, but it took me forever to get there. My hair, skin, and clothes were filthy, so I took a shower and changed before going to the fair with Pierre and my host mom. Going up the stairs to my room was a struggle, though. I nearly had to stop in the middle and catch my breath. Then on the way down, my thighs gave out and I fell a little! haha. That's embarrassing.
A half hour later, we went to the fair. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of walking. My host mom promised we wouldn't stay too long. Pierre and I went on one ride. It was okay, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd have been in the mood. Then we played a few games. I shot a BB gun at balloons that were blowing around in a cage thing and I popped all of them but 1! That wasn't worth a prize, thoughhh! You have to get them all or you get nothing. We played a couple other games and Pierre ringtossed himself a portable radio. That was the only thing we won, though. After that, we went to the fair restaurant for supper. I TRIED ESCARGOT! And I liked it, a lot :D! It took me longer than a minute to get the first snail out of its shell, and it really did not look appatizing, but it tasted yummy! I ate all 12 of them, and would definitely order that again. The next thing on my list is "cuise de grenoille" (aka frog legs). Needless to say, when we got home I was so tired I went straight to bed. I took some tylonal for my muscles, though, because I was expecting to be stiff today.
This morning, my throat and chest (as well as my butt and legs) were killing me! I actually was still having a hard time breathing and every move I made felt like a workout. Hah. I really overworked myself yesterday. For lunch today, Thomas and his family, Simon and his family, Annick, and Grandma all came over. I helped my mom with the meal and I made the "verrines." I don't know what that translates to in English, but they are little glasses with different things (like salad, tomatoes, tuna, a sauce, etc) piled on top of each other in layers. Since Thomas's kids weren't here for Easter, we had another egg hunt :)! Pierre and I hid the eggs and candies in the yard and I unfortunately stuck my hand into a bad plant. It made my skin burn and gave me puffy white blotches on my fingers where I'd touched it. My host mom put vinegar on it and then I washed my hands with cold water. She said the pain and spots would go away on its own after a while. That was at one. It's now 7:30 and my skin still tingles. The spots are gone and it doesn't burn as bad, but it is still uncomfortable. Although with how bad the rest of my body hurts, it really doesn't make that big of a difference.
After all the kids had arrived and the candy had been scattered about, the hunt began. I took a couple pictures and will post those maybe Thursday? I have plans tomorrow and Wednesday, so we'll see. I haven't got the time right now. It didn't take long before everything was found. The kids ate their lunch and then I served my verrines. They were pretty good! I made a few different kinds, but the one I ate had pears on the bottom, then tuna, lettuce, and a sauce on top. I don't really know what the sauce was because my host mom made it, but it went really well with the rest. After the kids were done (and two glasses were broken), the rest of us ate. It took the rest of the afternoon to get through all the courses and to finish talking and whatnot. After everyone left, I got on the computer.
Et voila! That's all for today!
a demain!
<3Miranda
Friday, April 17, 2009
86 Days
This morning, I got up a little bit earlier than yesterday, but moved much slower, so the bus was already at the bus stop when I arrived. Just as we pulled away, Justine called me and told me we didn't have Latin this morning. She was going tell me yesterday afternoon (since I don't go to Latin Thursdays), but she forgot. It was kind of bad timing, but it was nice news to get all the same. A Latin-less day is a good day :P! I passed my off hour with Marion and Sabrina in the CDI. Then I had Frenchh. We got assigned a book to buy & read over the vacation called, "La Parfum" and we also have another assignment. I forgot what the term is, but we have to find TEN different exerpts from different novels that follow a theme which relates to Manon Lescaut. She gave us some examples of things to chose from, and I chose to look for excerpts from novels where someone retells a love story. We have to basically introduce each excerpt (author, dates, novel). Then we copy/paste the excerpt onto a Word document and star the words we don't know and then define them at the bottom (that could get a little lengthy xD). Finally, we chose one adjective to describe the hero(?) and explain why it fits. That sounds like a fun way to spend vacation, eh?
After French, I had another hour off before English. We went to the CDI and I had Sabrina explain how the French paper worked (since I was a little confused). She also helped me organize my binder since we are turning them in after the break. Then we basically just talked until the hour was up.
In English, we got our DS back. Not to brag or anything, but I got a 19.5/20! That made me pretty happy :)! We went over the corrections for that, and then had the remaining 15 minutes to talk amongst ourselves. The funeral for the teacher who died earlier this week was this afternoon and my teacher went to that, so she cancelled our afternoon class. That left me without class from noon until 4.
Sabrina and I returned to the CDI after English and found Maxime there. Sabrina saw someone else she knew, so she went to parle with her and I stayed and talked with Maxime. He went through my ipod and criticized a lot of my French music (especially La Marseillaise(sp?) haha)! We got onto the topic of the Main Square Festival and he told me he was for sure going all 3 days. Now that I found someone else who is going, my host mom will let me goooooo :D! I'm excited for that!! I hope there are still tickets available!
At 12:30, Sabrina, her friend (Narine), Maxime, and I went to eat. Today was much better than yesterday. Things were back to normal in the cantine and I actually had some choices. I decided on pasta salad, a chocolate pie, and rice with beef & sauce. Marion showed up a little after 12:45, followed by Laureen and Virginie shortly after 1:00.
At 2:00, Sabrina, Maxime, and I left school. Maxime went home since he didn't have any other classes today, and Sabrina and I went shopping. Finally. I bought a tonnn of stuff. I actually got some clothes! I bought shorts, a skirt, a new belt, a tshirt, and a tanktop! I decided that I really needed that stuff for when I go South next week since I have very few summer clothes. I also got a new bag for school (more like an oversized purse, since thats what nearly everyone uses here), a pencil pouch, and a bunch of new school supplies. I think that's it...? Oh! Wait! I also got myself a French workbook for elementary kids. I figured that would be good practice xD! Anyway, I came back to school with a pretty big load. It was a little awkward carrying all that to class, but whatevs. I just had parcours.
In parcours today, we just worked on our French assignments in the CDI. I found 8 of the 10 extracts I need! I think my foreign author is going to be Edith Wharton, because Ethan Frome works really well for this assignment. The hard part is finding a 15-20 line extract (in English or French!). I found a few quotes that were 5 lines long (at most) on the Internet, but that won't work. I wish I could find a copy of that book somewhere; the school library didn't have it. I might end up screwing that and finding another French author. We will see.
Two hours later, my day was over. I rode the bus home and then ate a snack with Pierre. After that, I hung out with him a bit and then took all my purchases up to my room! I took my things out of my old bag and put them in my new one. I also got my pencil pouch together and put away my new clothes. Then I wrote out a birthday card ;D! Sabrina was going to help me with translate the message inside (since it's pretty long), but that didn't happen and I won't see her again until after the vacation, so I have to do it myself. I can't wait until May to send out the card. Haha, that would be wayyy too late. I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way and look up the words in my dictionary. I honestly haven't had to do that for a long time. When I don't know what something is, I usually just have someone explain it to me using words I do understand.
Anyways, after getting my crap organized, it was supper time. It wasn't until after eating that I got on the computer. That's alright, though, because I can sleep in until noon tomorrowwwww :D! Ahh! I am so very happy about that! The only thing I really dislike about having two weeks of vacation is that you don't see anyone from school. In France, kids can't drive solo until they are 18. Since most everyone I know is 16 or 17, none of them can drive places alone, yet. Everyone also lives far away from each other, so you can't walk either. That said, you really don't spend much time with your classmates outside of school. That is one thing I really dislike. I wish there was an efficient way for young people to get places. There are trains and buses, but for some reason, people only take those to and from school. Parents are the main source of transportation when it comes to recreational activities, and majority of them (or so I've noticed) don't like driving far (which to them is 15+ minutes).
That's really all I've got to say for today. I'll write again tomorrow night, if I get the chance! We're going back to the fair :)!
Bisous!
<3Miranda
After French, I had another hour off before English. We went to the CDI and I had Sabrina explain how the French paper worked (since I was a little confused). She also helped me organize my binder since we are turning them in after the break. Then we basically just talked until the hour was up.
In English, we got our DS back. Not to brag or anything, but I got a 19.5/20! That made me pretty happy :)! We went over the corrections for that, and then had the remaining 15 minutes to talk amongst ourselves. The funeral for the teacher who died earlier this week was this afternoon and my teacher went to that, so she cancelled our afternoon class. That left me without class from noon until 4.
Sabrina and I returned to the CDI after English and found Maxime there. Sabrina saw someone else she knew, so she went to parle with her and I stayed and talked with Maxime. He went through my ipod and criticized a lot of my French music (especially La Marseillaise(sp?) haha)! We got onto the topic of the Main Square Festival and he told me he was for sure going all 3 days. Now that I found someone else who is going, my host mom will let me goooooo :D! I'm excited for that!! I hope there are still tickets available!
At 12:30, Sabrina, her friend (Narine), Maxime, and I went to eat. Today was much better than yesterday. Things were back to normal in the cantine and I actually had some choices. I decided on pasta salad, a chocolate pie, and rice with beef & sauce. Marion showed up a little after 12:45, followed by Laureen and Virginie shortly after 1:00.
At 2:00, Sabrina, Maxime, and I left school. Maxime went home since he didn't have any other classes today, and Sabrina and I went shopping. Finally. I bought a tonnn of stuff. I actually got some clothes! I bought shorts, a skirt, a new belt, a tshirt, and a tanktop! I decided that I really needed that stuff for when I go South next week since I have very few summer clothes. I also got a new bag for school (more like an oversized purse, since thats what nearly everyone uses here), a pencil pouch, and a bunch of new school supplies. I think that's it...? Oh! Wait! I also got myself a French workbook for elementary kids. I figured that would be good practice xD! Anyway, I came back to school with a pretty big load. It was a little awkward carrying all that to class, but whatevs. I just had parcours.
In parcours today, we just worked on our French assignments in the CDI. I found 8 of the 10 extracts I need! I think my foreign author is going to be Edith Wharton, because Ethan Frome works really well for this assignment. The hard part is finding a 15-20 line extract (in English or French!). I found a few quotes that were 5 lines long (at most) on the Internet, but that won't work. I wish I could find a copy of that book somewhere; the school library didn't have it. I might end up screwing that and finding another French author. We will see.
Two hours later, my day was over. I rode the bus home and then ate a snack with Pierre. After that, I hung out with him a bit and then took all my purchases up to my room! I took my things out of my old bag and put them in my new one. I also got my pencil pouch together and put away my new clothes. Then I wrote out a birthday card ;D! Sabrina was going to help me with translate the message inside (since it's pretty long), but that didn't happen and I won't see her again until after the vacation, so I have to do it myself. I can't wait until May to send out the card. Haha, that would be wayyy too late. I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way and look up the words in my dictionary. I honestly haven't had to do that for a long time. When I don't know what something is, I usually just have someone explain it to me using words I do understand.
Anyways, after getting my crap organized, it was supper time. It wasn't until after eating that I got on the computer. That's alright, though, because I can sleep in until noon tomorrowwwww :D! Ahh! I am so very happy about that! The only thing I really dislike about having two weeks of vacation is that you don't see anyone from school. In France, kids can't drive solo until they are 18. Since most everyone I know is 16 or 17, none of them can drive places alone, yet. Everyone also lives far away from each other, so you can't walk either. That said, you really don't spend much time with your classmates outside of school. That is one thing I really dislike. I wish there was an efficient way for young people to get places. There are trains and buses, but for some reason, people only take those to and from school. Parents are the main source of transportation when it comes to recreational activities, and majority of them (or so I've noticed) don't like driving far (which to them is 15+ minutes).
That's really all I've got to say for today. I'll write again tomorrow night, if I get the chance! We're going back to the fair :)!
Bisous!
<3Miranda
Thursday, April 16, 2009
87 Days
Today started out like crap. I get closer and closer to missing my bus every day. Thank goodness tomorrow is the last day of school before the 2 week vacation so it won't be much longer before I can catch up on sleep! Because I was so tired today, I was crabby all morning. It didn't help that it was really warm in the classrooms, either. Being overly hot and being overly tired are the two things that tick me off the most, and it's pretty bad when the two are combined.
For the full two hours of history this morning, we watched a documentary on World War 1. I managed to stay awake majority of the first hour and kind of paid attention, but by the second hour, I was out. I rested my head on my hands and fell asleep. Haha. I woke up a few times throughout the film, but it was still nice. The down side to that, though, was that in my next class, French, I wasn't really awake yet. Before class, my teacher asked me a question and I responded "Ouais" instead of "Oui" and I guess that's rude; it's like the "tu" and "vous" thing. I didn't catch it until I heard someone else who was in the back say something like "someone needs to tell her that one uses 'oui' and 'vous' with the teacher, not 'ouais' and 'tu!!" I don't know who it was, but they said it in a really rude tone and it really pissed me off. That did nott help my mood much. When class started, we had to write a commentaire on a fable. She gave us the "problematique" and we had to use that to write our commentaire. I was so drowsy and preoccupied with what had taken place at the beginning of class that I couldn't concentrate at all. I didn't even get more than a few sentences of the fable read. By the end of the time period, my paper was still blank. Sabrina was chosen to present her commentaire in front of the class (this is called "une orale"). Then everyone else handed their papers in, except me (since I didn't do anything).
Thankfully after French, I had a period off. My math teacher wasn't there today, so I went with Sabrina to the CDI. She informed me that we had an orale in Anglais Complementaire today, too, so we reviewed for that a little. I worked on my British accent. I met a girl named Sarah, too, and talked with her for a while. Gaetane was sitting at our table, too, and I heard she's pretty good at "Ch'ti," so I had her write down some phrases for me to learn. "Ch'ti" is a type of French accent. It's kind of like a hic accent to us, I suppose. Mainly the older people speak it and the newer generations make fun of it. I don't know a whole lot about it, but that's my understanding. I'm going to try and learn a little bit, if I can. haha.
I had Anglais Complementaire at noon. By this time, my mood had improved a bit and I was a little more awake. After Kozimor asked a few people how they were feeling and why they were feeling the way they felt, we started our oral examination. He handed out a cartoon and a worksheet with questions on it. We were to interpret the cartoon and talk a little about it. This oral was a relief compared to the French one. I actually succeeded in answering everything fairly thouroughly. Saloua was the lucky person chosen to present. After she was finished, class was pretty much over. I checked my phone since someone had messaged me during class. It was Marine telling me that Hillary was in front of the school! I told Sabrina that before lunch we had to go out and say "Hi." We went to look for them, but Hillary had already left. We went back into the school and met up with Marion at the cantine.
Lunch today was not fabulous. It reminded me of Lunchrun C the Friday before Christmas vacation back at South High; there was nothinggg to eat! There were 2 yogurts left and the people in front of me took those. I got one of the last desserts, and the entrée bar was pretty picked over as well. What really disappointed me, though, was when I got my main dish. They were serving fries with either chicken nuggets or fish in a sauce. I was really looking forward to the chicken nuggets, but the person JUST in front of me got the last onessssss! Ughh! I had to settle with fish. It wasn't bad or anything, but I haven't eaten a chicken nugget in foreverrr! That really irritated me!
After lunch, things got better. Sabrina and I went into town to buy the school supplies I found on Tuesday. However, as we were walking into the downtown area, we came across Marine and Jeremy. Marine told me that Hillary was with one of her friends and I was to call her cell phone if I got the chance. I did so right away and Hillary was at the Befroi with her class. We had five minutes before they left, so Sabrina and I booked it on over! I got there and couldn't find her anywhere. I was standing in the middle of the crowd looking for her when she came up behind me and grabbed me! I let out a louddd scream! haha! She introduced me to some of her friends and I introduced her to Sabrina. Then I talked to her history teacher a little. He was pretty chill and gave Sabrina and I permission to tag along with the class until we had to go back to class. We walked around the Petit Place and then the Grand Place and through the fair and then continued down another street. There is another girl in Hillary's school who's from Argentina. She's been here since August and her accent is so good that Sabrina actually thought she was French. She said she had almost a perfect southern French accent. I don't remember her name, but she was at the AFS reunion in Feburary and will be at the next one which is actually just next week Wednesday. Hillary won't be there, though, because she is going to the Czeck Republic to see her best friend who is on an exchange program there. Hillary and I talked mainly in French, not only so the others could follow the conversation, but also because it felt more natural. Toward the end, we did speak for about ten minutes or so in English, but that's all, I promise. Ten minutes out of an hour and a half is pretty good in my opinion.
At four, we had French, so a little beforehand, we said goodbye to Hillary and the Argentina girl (I forgot her name :S) and headed back to the school. This French period was two hours long and we spent it writing another commentaire. This time there was not an oral afterwards; it was just a written commentaire. The text was an extract from Manon Lescaut (imagine that!) and I was awake enough by now to do some work. I think I did a fairly decent job, too. I had the front and back of one sheet and half of a second sheet filled up. It wasn't just BS either! I had to read the text a few times (and have Sabrina explain a little) before I understood it, but I eventually found a problematique and got an outline down. After that, most of the work had been done and I could write my commentaire without much problem. My conclusion was really sucky, but other than that, my paper went well (for me, at least)!
After school, I took the bus home. My ipod battery was dead, so I spent the ten minute ride in silence. When I got home, things went like normal; I ate a snack and then got on the computer. Now I'm going to get off and chill with Pierre.
à demain!
-Miranda<3
For the full two hours of history this morning, we watched a documentary on World War 1. I managed to stay awake majority of the first hour and kind of paid attention, but by the second hour, I was out. I rested my head on my hands and fell asleep. Haha. I woke up a few times throughout the film, but it was still nice. The down side to that, though, was that in my next class, French, I wasn't really awake yet. Before class, my teacher asked me a question and I responded "Ouais" instead of "Oui" and I guess that's rude; it's like the "tu" and "vous" thing. I didn't catch it until I heard someone else who was in the back say something like "someone needs to tell her that one uses 'oui' and 'vous' with the teacher, not 'ouais' and 'tu!!" I don't know who it was, but they said it in a really rude tone and it really pissed me off. That did nott help my mood much. When class started, we had to write a commentaire on a fable. She gave us the "problematique" and we had to use that to write our commentaire. I was so drowsy and preoccupied with what had taken place at the beginning of class that I couldn't concentrate at all. I didn't even get more than a few sentences of the fable read. By the end of the time period, my paper was still blank. Sabrina was chosen to present her commentaire in front of the class (this is called "une orale"). Then everyone else handed their papers in, except me (since I didn't do anything).
Thankfully after French, I had a period off. My math teacher wasn't there today, so I went with Sabrina to the CDI. She informed me that we had an orale in Anglais Complementaire today, too, so we reviewed for that a little. I worked on my British accent. I met a girl named Sarah, too, and talked with her for a while. Gaetane was sitting at our table, too, and I heard she's pretty good at "Ch'ti," so I had her write down some phrases for me to learn. "Ch'ti" is a type of French accent. It's kind of like a hic accent to us, I suppose. Mainly the older people speak it and the newer generations make fun of it. I don't know a whole lot about it, but that's my understanding. I'm going to try and learn a little bit, if I can. haha.
I had Anglais Complementaire at noon. By this time, my mood had improved a bit and I was a little more awake. After Kozimor asked a few people how they were feeling and why they were feeling the way they felt, we started our oral examination. He handed out a cartoon and a worksheet with questions on it. We were to interpret the cartoon and talk a little about it. This oral was a relief compared to the French one. I actually succeeded in answering everything fairly thouroughly. Saloua was the lucky person chosen to present. After she was finished, class was pretty much over. I checked my phone since someone had messaged me during class. It was Marine telling me that Hillary was in front of the school! I told Sabrina that before lunch we had to go out and say "Hi." We went to look for them, but Hillary had already left. We went back into the school and met up with Marion at the cantine.
Lunch today was not fabulous. It reminded me of Lunchrun C the Friday before Christmas vacation back at South High; there was nothinggg to eat! There were 2 yogurts left and the people in front of me took those. I got one of the last desserts, and the entrée bar was pretty picked over as well. What really disappointed me, though, was when I got my main dish. They were serving fries with either chicken nuggets or fish in a sauce. I was really looking forward to the chicken nuggets, but the person JUST in front of me got the last onessssss! Ughh! I had to settle with fish. It wasn't bad or anything, but I haven't eaten a chicken nugget in foreverrr! That really irritated me!
After lunch, things got better. Sabrina and I went into town to buy the school supplies I found on Tuesday. However, as we were walking into the downtown area, we came across Marine and Jeremy. Marine told me that Hillary was with one of her friends and I was to call her cell phone if I got the chance. I did so right away and Hillary was at the Befroi with her class. We had five minutes before they left, so Sabrina and I booked it on over! I got there and couldn't find her anywhere. I was standing in the middle of the crowd looking for her when she came up behind me and grabbed me! I let out a louddd scream! haha! She introduced me to some of her friends and I introduced her to Sabrina. Then I talked to her history teacher a little. He was pretty chill and gave Sabrina and I permission to tag along with the class until we had to go back to class. We walked around the Petit Place and then the Grand Place and through the fair and then continued down another street. There is another girl in Hillary's school who's from Argentina. She's been here since August and her accent is so good that Sabrina actually thought she was French. She said she had almost a perfect southern French accent. I don't remember her name, but she was at the AFS reunion in Feburary and will be at the next one which is actually just next week Wednesday. Hillary won't be there, though, because she is going to the Czeck Republic to see her best friend who is on an exchange program there. Hillary and I talked mainly in French, not only so the others could follow the conversation, but also because it felt more natural. Toward the end, we did speak for about ten minutes or so in English, but that's all, I promise. Ten minutes out of an hour and a half is pretty good in my opinion.
At four, we had French, so a little beforehand, we said goodbye to Hillary and the Argentina girl (I forgot her name :S) and headed back to the school. This French period was two hours long and we spent it writing another commentaire. This time there was not an oral afterwards; it was just a written commentaire. The text was an extract from Manon Lescaut (imagine that!) and I was awake enough by now to do some work. I think I did a fairly decent job, too. I had the front and back of one sheet and half of a second sheet filled up. It wasn't just BS either! I had to read the text a few times (and have Sabrina explain a little) before I understood it, but I eventually found a problematique and got an outline down. After that, most of the work had been done and I could write my commentaire without much problem. My conclusion was really sucky, but other than that, my paper went well (for me, at least)!
After school, I took the bus home. My ipod battery was dead, so I spent the ten minute ride in silence. When I got home, things went like normal; I ate a snack and then got on the computer. Now I'm going to get off and chill with Pierre.
à demain!
-Miranda<3
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
88 Days
I went back and finished yesterday's post. I put in three *** where I left off so it would be easier for you to find your place, if you were reading that.
Anyway on with today! I didn't have math today! And I don't have it tomorrow either! Today my theatre teacher got the theatre kids out of class because we had a speaker thing (I'll go into that later), and tomorrow my math teacher won't be there! Yayyy! A whole week without math! :D!
The theatre thing wasn't really a whole lot better, though. A lady came in (the same one who spoke to us a couple weeks ago) and taught us about marionettes. That sounds kind of interesting, but it was so strange! I did not like the activities at all. We started out by getting in a circle and going around, saying our names and making an action. That wasn't too bad. Then, we had to go around again and repeat everyone elses action & say their name before we did our own. That sucked. I made a mistake on the second person, and it did not get better after that. Unfortunately, I was closer to the end than the begining, so I had quite a few people to get through. I had a harder time with everyone's name than their action. People had to keep reminding me, and it was kind of embarrasing. Afterwards I knew almost everyone's name, though! The following activities all had to do with our hands. We had to animate our hand and give it a personality. That was so strange! The first task was to create a scene where your hand took control of itself. We had about 5 minutes to come up with an idea and then she called on people to present their scenes. Thankfully, I did not get called! The second excercise was the same deal, but instead of losing control of our hand, our hand became a character and we performed a scene with it walking around on a table. Once again, I did not get called on. And merci beaucoup! I hadn't the slightest idea what to do. We spent the last 15 minutes looking and playing with a real marionette puppet. It wasn't on strings or anything, but it was interesting to watch people make it walk around and jump and all that.
When the three hours were up, I went out front and waited for my host mom. I found Virginie, Laureen, Marion, and Sabrina right away. Sabrina had my math homework and my math portion of my Bac Blanc (like I mentioned before, FERPA doesn't have any meaning here). I GOT A 9,5 OUT OF 20 ON MY BAC!!!!! That made me super happy! To most of you, that probably sounds terrible, but it's actually almost at the average. I lost most of my points because I didn't show my work. It was simple crap like multiplying single numbers or calculator equasions, so I didn't think we had to, but whatever. It was a half a point for the correct answer at least. After Sabrina and the others left, I found some other people from my class. They had grades like 6, 5.5, 8, and 10, so I am reallyyyy content with my grade!
I talked with Marine, Justine, and a "10th grader" from the school across the street named Anthony. Then my host mom arrived and took me home. After eating lunch, Pierre went to get his hair cut and I got on the computer. He's home now, though, and wants me to help him with something, so I've gotta go.
A Demain!
<3Miranda
Anyway on with today! I didn't have math today! And I don't have it tomorrow either! Today my theatre teacher got the theatre kids out of class because we had a speaker thing (I'll go into that later), and tomorrow my math teacher won't be there! Yayyy! A whole week without math! :D!
The theatre thing wasn't really a whole lot better, though. A lady came in (the same one who spoke to us a couple weeks ago) and taught us about marionettes. That sounds kind of interesting, but it was so strange! I did not like the activities at all. We started out by getting in a circle and going around, saying our names and making an action. That wasn't too bad. Then, we had to go around again and repeat everyone elses action & say their name before we did our own. That sucked. I made a mistake on the second person, and it did not get better after that. Unfortunately, I was closer to the end than the begining, so I had quite a few people to get through. I had a harder time with everyone's name than their action. People had to keep reminding me, and it was kind of embarrasing. Afterwards I knew almost everyone's name, though! The following activities all had to do with our hands. We had to animate our hand and give it a personality. That was so strange! The first task was to create a scene where your hand took control of itself. We had about 5 minutes to come up with an idea and then she called on people to present their scenes. Thankfully, I did not get called! The second excercise was the same deal, but instead of losing control of our hand, our hand became a character and we performed a scene with it walking around on a table. Once again, I did not get called on. And merci beaucoup! I hadn't the slightest idea what to do. We spent the last 15 minutes looking and playing with a real marionette puppet. It wasn't on strings or anything, but it was interesting to watch people make it walk around and jump and all that.
When the three hours were up, I went out front and waited for my host mom. I found Virginie, Laureen, Marion, and Sabrina right away. Sabrina had my math homework and my math portion of my Bac Blanc (like I mentioned before, FERPA doesn't have any meaning here). I GOT A 9,5 OUT OF 20 ON MY BAC!!!!! That made me super happy! To most of you, that probably sounds terrible, but it's actually almost at the average. I lost most of my points because I didn't show my work. It was simple crap like multiplying single numbers or calculator equasions, so I didn't think we had to, but whatever. It was a half a point for the correct answer at least. After Sabrina and the others left, I found some other people from my class. They had grades like 6, 5.5, 8, and 10, so I am reallyyyy content with my grade!
I talked with Marine, Justine, and a "10th grader" from the school across the street named Anthony. Then my host mom arrived and took me home. After eating lunch, Pierre went to get his hair cut and I got on the computer. He's home now, though, and wants me to help him with something, so I've gotta go.
A Demain!
<3Miranda
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
89 Days
Ahh! I have suchh a headache today! It's put me in a really crabby mood, too. EVERYTHING is tickingg me offf! I need to get some sleep tonight!
Anyway, right now I'm at school. It's a little after 5 o'clock and I just finished my last course of the day, Français. My bus doesn't get here until 6, so I have a little downtime for writing. I'll pick up where I left off yesterday and see how far I get before the hour is up. Also, I don't have my journal with, so I'm going off of memory.
SATURDAY : I woke up early since I was sharing a room with little kids. I think Lilian was the first one up at 6:00. I fell back to sleep a couple times, and finally got myself out of bed around 9:30. After breakfast, some people who live in England arrived! They have been living there for 2 years, so I was told they knew English pretty well. The dad and the kid only spoke a teeeny bit of English to me. They told me I could speak English with them if I wanted to, but I never did. I can't even explain the feeling when I talk in English. It's soo weird. It feels so foreign to me now. I can still do it, obviously, but it doesn't feel natural. Anyway, we all went on a walk around town. There was an animal pond thing with ducks, swans, geese, etc in the water and goats and sheep in a fenced in area along side. After that, we came across a playground where we stopped for a bit. Then we moved on to an ampitheatre type area. There were some neat little houses built around the cement platform and benches on a hill for watching. Then behind the stage there was a lake. It started raining really hard, so we hung out in one of the huts and waited for it to pass. As we continued on, we found a waterfall which flowed into a stream which led to a lake. Then we turned onto a road and ended up back at the cabin. As the day went on, more and more people arrived, including a couple people my age. Simon was 14 and Lucie was 16. That was nice, because all the other kids were 12 and under, I think. Most of them were probably around 4 or 5.
Okay, I really am having issues remembering what I did on each day. Everything has kind of meshed together in my head, so I'm just going to quick summarize the rest of the trip. If you want to know more details, talk to me when I get back or send me an email & I will review my journal and respond.
Basically, one of the days, I helped Thomas and Nicolas make sailboats for the kids to race in the river. They were made out of plastic bottles, branches, and then some white fabric-y paper stuff for the sails. We went back to the river and the kids had a race. After that, a few people around my age arrived, Lucie (16) and Simon (14). We hung out the rest of the weekend together. We spent a lot of time playing ball outside with the little kids. We had another sailboat race another day (Easter, I think?). This time, Lucie, Simon, and I made something to race with, too. It took us about 5 minutes to throw together. A plastic plate was the base. We added two plastic cups to the side of that to trap air and keep it afloat, and then on top we had a cork covered with a flower for decoration & extra floatation. Ours ended up working really well and moved super fast! We passed all the little kids' boats in no time and would have come in first place easily, except our boat broke on the way down the little waterfall at the end... haha. We gathered up the parts and fixed it up for the second round, but by the time we got it in the water, the first place boat was too far ahead to pass. Ummm.. what else? ...Easter was not a whole lot different than Easter in Fargo. After breakfast, the kids got ready to go on an Easter egg hunt in the yard. In France, there is a bell who hides chocolate eggs all over the yard, not a bunny. Also, the candy is not inside plastic eggs; it's just the chocolate eggs who are hidden. When all the candy has been found, the kids throw it all in the same bucket and shared it. *** That prevented the bigger kids from hoarding all the chocolate. After the egg hunt, most of us went to church. Majority of the kids stayed back at the house with the few adults who didn't go. The service didn't hold my attention long enough for me to comprehend what was being said (although I have that same problem in English), but I'm pretty sure he just told us the Easter story. The inside of the church was interesting, though. You walked right into the back of the main room; there wasn't a foyer. The pews were made out of old wood and they had gates on the ends. There was a large painting on the wall behind the alter, and there were different sculptures of Jesus and the cross hanging down from the ceiling and on the side walls. The room was not very big, and I ended up sitting on a bench along the side wall with Anne and a couple other people. At communion, there was just bread, no wine. We greeted everyone with kisses instead of handshakes. Those are the only real differences I noted, though. After church, I think it was then when we made sailboats with the little kids back at home.. I dunno exactly. By lunch time, there were 80-some people at the cabin!! We ate in the dining house in the backyard since it was larger than the dining room in the cabin itself. The rest of the weekend was mainly spent playing ball and taking walks. We had a little soccer game Sunday evening and I met another kid my age named Gregoire. Lucie, Simon, Gregoire, and I had our own room the last night, and it was on the top floor so we weren't woken up by the kids in the morning. The ride home was long. I let Romane play games on my ipod, and she played until the batterie died. We still had another hour after that, so I played with Lilian a little. We dropped Mme Noëlle off at her house in Maroeuil (another village around the Arras area), and then I went back to Mt. Saint Eloi with the others. My host mom picked me up from Thomas's house that evening. I don't remember anything after that.
Today I had school again. I nearly missed the bus this morning because I was soo tired! I had Latin first, then French, followed by 2 hours of history and an hour of some class in the same room with the same teacher. I don't remember what it's called, but I only have it once every other week. We talked about the 6 presidents of the 5th Republic today. The onlyyy one I didn't recognize was Valéry Something. We have a quiz on the 6 presidents and their dates in office next class period (which isn't until after the vacation). I three hour break after that. Sabrina and I ate lunch with Marion, Laureen, and Virginie, and then left school. I wanted to buy envelopes (so I can finally send out my letters that have been sitting here for everr) and blue ink cartrages for my fountain pen. We went to a store called Monoprix (which is kind of like a Walmart), and found what I needed. Then we went up to the register and when I went for my money, it wasn't there! I forgot I took it out to bring with over the weekend! Luckily we hadn't gotten through the line yet, so I saved myself a little embarrasment. Sabrina and I went and put the stuff back and then left. I'm hoping to go back Thursday during our break. After that, we still had 2 full hours, so we went to a gorgeousss park! I decided I want to try and get my senior pictures taken there. It's got a really nice pond with tons of ducks and a few williow trees and hills and rocks and a bridge and ahh! I love it. After our time had passed, we made our way back to school. During the recreation time before class started, Wendie came up to us and told us that a Post-Bac teacher had commit suicide! I am assuming it had just happend, but it didn't take place at school. I don't really know a whole lot of details. We had French class, and after that, I went to the library and wrote the begining of this. After I got home, Pierre and I ate snack. Then we talked for a while until my host mom came home. She took us out to eat at a pizzaria with her friend, Pierrette. The pizzaria was located in the Grand Place in Arras, and there also happens to be a fair going on, so after eating, my host mom took Pierre and I on a little walk around that. Pierre and I played bumper cars three times, and then played an arcade game where you put your coin in and try and push the other coins off the edge up front... I don't remember what the name of it is in English, but I think they have one (or used to have one) at Chuck E Cheese. Most everything else was closed since it was late and a weeknight. We might go back Saturday. It wasn't until about 10:30 when we finally got home! I went right up to my room and got ready for bed.
Sorry for not finishing yesterday, but I did not have the time. I'm going to make a new post for today, though.
Anyway, right now I'm at school. It's a little after 5 o'clock and I just finished my last course of the day, Français. My bus doesn't get here until 6, so I have a little downtime for writing. I'll pick up where I left off yesterday and see how far I get before the hour is up. Also, I don't have my journal with, so I'm going off of memory.
SATURDAY : I woke up early since I was sharing a room with little kids. I think Lilian was the first one up at 6:00. I fell back to sleep a couple times, and finally got myself out of bed around 9:30. After breakfast, some people who live in England arrived! They have been living there for 2 years, so I was told they knew English pretty well. The dad and the kid only spoke a teeeny bit of English to me. They told me I could speak English with them if I wanted to, but I never did. I can't even explain the feeling when I talk in English. It's soo weird. It feels so foreign to me now. I can still do it, obviously, but it doesn't feel natural. Anyway, we all went on a walk around town. There was an animal pond thing with ducks, swans, geese, etc in the water and goats and sheep in a fenced in area along side. After that, we came across a playground where we stopped for a bit. Then we moved on to an ampitheatre type area. There were some neat little houses built around the cement platform and benches on a hill for watching. Then behind the stage there was a lake. It started raining really hard, so we hung out in one of the huts and waited for it to pass. As we continued on, we found a waterfall which flowed into a stream which led to a lake. Then we turned onto a road and ended up back at the cabin. As the day went on, more and more people arrived, including a couple people my age. Simon was 14 and Lucie was 16. That was nice, because all the other kids were 12 and under, I think. Most of them were probably around 4 or 5.
Okay, I really am having issues remembering what I did on each day. Everything has kind of meshed together in my head, so I'm just going to quick summarize the rest of the trip. If you want to know more details, talk to me when I get back or send me an email & I will review my journal and respond.
Basically, one of the days, I helped Thomas and Nicolas make sailboats for the kids to race in the river. They were made out of plastic bottles, branches, and then some white fabric-y paper stuff for the sails. We went back to the river and the kids had a race. After that, a few people around my age arrived, Lucie (16) and Simon (14). We hung out the rest of the weekend together. We spent a lot of time playing ball outside with the little kids. We had another sailboat race another day (Easter, I think?). This time, Lucie, Simon, and I made something to race with, too. It took us about 5 minutes to throw together. A plastic plate was the base. We added two plastic cups to the side of that to trap air and keep it afloat, and then on top we had a cork covered with a flower for decoration & extra floatation. Ours ended up working really well and moved super fast! We passed all the little kids' boats in no time and would have come in first place easily, except our boat broke on the way down the little waterfall at the end... haha. We gathered up the parts and fixed it up for the second round, but by the time we got it in the water, the first place boat was too far ahead to pass. Ummm.. what else? ...Easter was not a whole lot different than Easter in Fargo. After breakfast, the kids got ready to go on an Easter egg hunt in the yard. In France, there is a bell who hides chocolate eggs all over the yard, not a bunny. Also, the candy is not inside plastic eggs; it's just the chocolate eggs who are hidden. When all the candy has been found, the kids throw it all in the same bucket and shared it. *** That prevented the bigger kids from hoarding all the chocolate. After the egg hunt, most of us went to church. Majority of the kids stayed back at the house with the few adults who didn't go. The service didn't hold my attention long enough for me to comprehend what was being said (although I have that same problem in English), but I'm pretty sure he just told us the Easter story. The inside of the church was interesting, though. You walked right into the back of the main room; there wasn't a foyer. The pews were made out of old wood and they had gates on the ends. There was a large painting on the wall behind the alter, and there were different sculptures of Jesus and the cross hanging down from the ceiling and on the side walls. The room was not very big, and I ended up sitting on a bench along the side wall with Anne and a couple other people. At communion, there was just bread, no wine. We greeted everyone with kisses instead of handshakes. Those are the only real differences I noted, though. After church, I think it was then when we made sailboats with the little kids back at home.. I dunno exactly. By lunch time, there were 80-some people at the cabin!! We ate in the dining house in the backyard since it was larger than the dining room in the cabin itself. The rest of the weekend was mainly spent playing ball and taking walks. We had a little soccer game Sunday evening and I met another kid my age named Gregoire. Lucie, Simon, Gregoire, and I had our own room the last night, and it was on the top floor so we weren't woken up by the kids in the morning. The ride home was long. I let Romane play games on my ipod, and she played until the batterie died. We still had another hour after that, so I played with Lilian a little. We dropped Mme Noëlle off at her house in Maroeuil (another village around the Arras area), and then I went back to Mt. Saint Eloi with the others. My host mom picked me up from Thomas's house that evening. I don't remember anything after that.
Today I had school again. I nearly missed the bus this morning because I was soo tired! I had Latin first, then French, followed by 2 hours of history and an hour of some class in the same room with the same teacher. I don't remember what it's called, but I only have it once every other week. We talked about the 6 presidents of the 5th Republic today. The onlyyy one I didn't recognize was Valéry Something. We have a quiz on the 6 presidents and their dates in office next class period (which isn't until after the vacation). I three hour break after that. Sabrina and I ate lunch with Marion, Laureen, and Virginie, and then left school. I wanted to buy envelopes (so I can finally send out my letters that have been sitting here for everr) and blue ink cartrages for my fountain pen. We went to a store called Monoprix (which is kind of like a Walmart), and found what I needed. Then we went up to the register and when I went for my money, it wasn't there! I forgot I took it out to bring with over the weekend! Luckily we hadn't gotten through the line yet, so I saved myself a little embarrasment. Sabrina and I went and put the stuff back and then left. I'm hoping to go back Thursday during our break. After that, we still had 2 full hours, so we went to a gorgeousss park! I decided I want to try and get my senior pictures taken there. It's got a really nice pond with tons of ducks and a few williow trees and hills and rocks and a bridge and ahh! I love it. After our time had passed, we made our way back to school. During the recreation time before class started, Wendie came up to us and told us that a Post-Bac teacher had commit suicide! I am assuming it had just happend, but it didn't take place at school. I don't really know a whole lot of details. We had French class, and after that, I went to the library and wrote the begining of this. After I got home, Pierre and I ate snack. Then we talked for a while until my host mom came home. She took us out to eat at a pizzaria with her friend, Pierrette. The pizzaria was located in the Grand Place in Arras, and there also happens to be a fair going on, so after eating, my host mom took Pierre and I on a little walk around that. Pierre and I played bumper cars three times, and then played an arcade game where you put your coin in and try and push the other coins off the edge up front... I don't remember what the name of it is in English, but I think they have one (or used to have one) at Chuck E Cheese. Most everything else was closed since it was late and a weeknight. We might go back Saturday. It wasn't until about 10:30 when we finally got home! I went right up to my room and got ready for bed.
Sorry for not finishing yesterday, but I did not have the time. I'm going to make a new post for today, though.
Monday, April 13, 2009
90 Days.
I'm Back! ...and I have a lottt to tell you guys! I really want to get to bed early tonight, though, since I have school tomorrow and I didn't sleep a whole lot this weekend. I'll write a little about each day, but I'm not going to go into a tonn of detail.
FRIDAY : At school, I had Latin, French, and one English LV1 class. At the end of French class, we had a class photo!! That made me super happy, because they don't have yearbooks here, so that kind of makes up for it. The class photo was just with the 301L1 kids, though. It's not like in Frago where you get 500 people together for a picture. I left school at one o'clock (just after eating) to go home and pack and then left with Anne and Thomas. I sat in the way back with Romane. In the middle row sat Madame Noëlle, Lou-Marie, and Lilian. Then up front was Thomas behind the wheel and Anne riding shotgun. The trip to four hours. On the way, we watched a few DVDs including "Il Etait Une Fois" (Enchanted), "La Soldat Rose" and a little of "Le Roi Soleil" (French musicals). I really only paid attention to Enchanted. I spent a good chunk of time looking out the window at the scenery. The style of the houses is different in Normandy. I took some pictures and will try & post them later on this week. I also saw a few castles! They were much smaller than I expected a castle to be! I expected a castle to be huge and have a bunch of towers like in the movies, but the ones I saw only had one tower and a little piece of building attatched. The landscape itself was also different. It varied quite a bit, but there were a lot of hills and trees and stuff. It was interesting to look at; it wasn't just farmland. We were then first group to arrive at the "gîte" (for lack of a better term, we'll have to translate that to 'cabin'). I helped unpack everything and then Anne's cousin, Nicolas, arrived with his family. We all went on a little tour of the place. The house has 2 floors of bedrooms and bathrooms, plus the main floor. I counted 12 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms total!!! After figuring out where we were going to sleep, I helped Madame Noëlle make crêpes! I helped her with the batter, and then after making a couple, she left me to make the rest by myself! I did not do the greatest job spinning the batter in the pan, but in the end, they tasted just fine. A few other people arrived that night and after eating and a little conversation, I went up to bed.
I appologize, but I have to stop there because my host mom needs to use the computer and I am going to go to bed.
I will finish up tomorrow. :)
Goodnight!
<3miranda
FRIDAY : At school, I had Latin, French, and one English LV1 class. At the end of French class, we had a class photo!! That made me super happy, because they don't have yearbooks here, so that kind of makes up for it. The class photo was just with the 301L1 kids, though. It's not like in Frago where you get 500 people together for a picture. I left school at one o'clock (just after eating) to go home and pack and then left with Anne and Thomas. I sat in the way back with Romane. In the middle row sat Madame Noëlle, Lou-Marie, and Lilian. Then up front was Thomas behind the wheel and Anne riding shotgun. The trip to four hours. On the way, we watched a few DVDs including "Il Etait Une Fois" (Enchanted), "La Soldat Rose" and a little of "Le Roi Soleil" (French musicals). I really only paid attention to Enchanted. I spent a good chunk of time looking out the window at the scenery. The style of the houses is different in Normandy. I took some pictures and will try & post them later on this week. I also saw a few castles! They were much smaller than I expected a castle to be! I expected a castle to be huge and have a bunch of towers like in the movies, but the ones I saw only had one tower and a little piece of building attatched. The landscape itself was also different. It varied quite a bit, but there were a lot of hills and trees and stuff. It was interesting to look at; it wasn't just farmland. We were then first group to arrive at the "gîte" (for lack of a better term, we'll have to translate that to 'cabin'). I helped unpack everything and then Anne's cousin, Nicolas, arrived with his family. We all went on a little tour of the place. The house has 2 floors of bedrooms and bathrooms, plus the main floor. I counted 12 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms total!!! After figuring out where we were going to sleep, I helped Madame Noëlle make crêpes! I helped her with the batter, and then after making a couple, she left me to make the rest by myself! I did not do the greatest job spinning the batter in the pan, but in the end, they tasted just fine. A few other people arrived that night and after eating and a little conversation, I went up to bed.
I appologize, but I have to stop there because my host mom needs to use the computer and I am going to go to bed.
I will finish up tomorrow. :)
Goodnight!
<3miranda
Thursday, April 9, 2009
94 Days.
Today was longggg. At 8:00, we started the Bac Blanc Français. We were given FOUR hours to answer a complex question and then respond to one of 3 topics. I chose the "disertation." Originally I was planning on doing the commentaire (since I've got the format down), but I couldn't comprehend the text it was on, so I did the disertation instead. It was the only topic I (kind of) understood. I managed to fill up one page front and back, plus the front of another! I was really proud of myself, since that's how much the other students usually write for their DS on Saturdays. Then I looked around the room and saw that most people were working on their third or fourth page! I'm still content with what I did get done. I am starting to wonder if I answered the question correctly, though.. I think I may have misunderstood it. Ha. Oh well, some teacher can have a good laugh at my paper while they correct it. :P
After an hour and 20 minutes of waiting, the session was finally over. We had a two hour break for lunch. Everyonee was at the cantine at once, so Sabrina, Virginie, Laureen, and I hung out in the CDI for a while until the crowd died down a bit. After we had finished eating, Sabrina had a headache, so I went with her to the nurse. Then it was time for the "L" (me) and "ES" kids to take the science portion of the Bac Blanc. The "S" trac kids take that one next year. The "ES" people only take the life science portion this year, and we (the "L" kids) took both the physical and life science tests today. We were given an hour and thirty minutes to complete both parts. I responded to all but one question on the biology test, so that went alright. The physical science was another story. haha. I used over half of my time on the biology one, so the physical one was rushed. On top of that, I didn't understand a lot of the material, so that made it even harder. I ended up just guessing and BSing a lot of answers. I didn't finish the whole thing, though. I missed about 5 or 6 questions. :/ It's better than my physical science DS though! haha!
When that was done, we had a half hour (?) break. I went with Gaetane to the 4th floor and bought an Orangina to drink. :)! Then I chatted with Mary, Justine, Jeremy, and Rafaël. We reviewed a little for the math portion, and then break was over. The "L" kids are the only ones who take their math this year. We got an hour and a half to work on the problems. I managed to finish, but I knoww I got a lot wrong. I didn't respond completely to one of them because I had no idea what it was asking, and then there were a few others I didn't have any idea how to do. I just BSed a number and scribbled it down. I don't really care; I hate math. haha.
Our day was finished at 5:30. I talked with Mary, Alice, Joy, Fiona, Julie, and Sabrina until my bus arrived at around 10 after 6. Oranne and Camille rode the bus today, too, so I talked with them for a little bit. When I got home, I ate a snack and then attempted to pack my suitcase a little. That didn't go to well, though. I hardly got anything packed. I'll probably save that until tomorrow just before Thomas comes to get me ;D!
It was Anne's birthday yesterday, but since we didn't get the chance yesterday, we went over tonight to wish her a happy birthday. We drank a little champagne, ate some puffy cracker things, and talked. Mainly we discussed tomorrow and how the weekend is going to play out. I'm going with them to Normandy tomorrow afternoon until Monday. Anne's side of the family is having a reunion there, and we'll be staying in a large cabin together. They invited me along to watch the kids. That said, I don't know if I will have Internet time (or access!), so I probably won't be on for a few days. I'll do a good job writing in my written journal and then type that up for you when I get back. :)!
Bon week-end!
et Jouyeux Paques!
<333Miranda
After an hour and 20 minutes of waiting, the session was finally over. We had a two hour break for lunch. Everyonee was at the cantine at once, so Sabrina, Virginie, Laureen, and I hung out in the CDI for a while until the crowd died down a bit. After we had finished eating, Sabrina had a headache, so I went with her to the nurse. Then it was time for the "L" (me) and "ES" kids to take the science portion of the Bac Blanc. The "S" trac kids take that one next year. The "ES" people only take the life science portion this year, and we (the "L" kids) took both the physical and life science tests today. We were given an hour and thirty minutes to complete both parts. I responded to all but one question on the biology test, so that went alright. The physical science was another story. haha. I used over half of my time on the biology one, so the physical one was rushed. On top of that, I didn't understand a lot of the material, so that made it even harder. I ended up just guessing and BSing a lot of answers. I didn't finish the whole thing, though. I missed about 5 or 6 questions. :/ It's better than my physical science DS though! haha!
When that was done, we had a half hour (?) break. I went with Gaetane to the 4th floor and bought an Orangina to drink. :)! Then I chatted with Mary, Justine, Jeremy, and Rafaël. We reviewed a little for the math portion, and then break was over. The "L" kids are the only ones who take their math this year. We got an hour and a half to work on the problems. I managed to finish, but I knoww I got a lot wrong. I didn't respond completely to one of them because I had no idea what it was asking, and then there were a few others I didn't have any idea how to do. I just BSed a number and scribbled it down. I don't really care; I hate math. haha.
Our day was finished at 5:30. I talked with Mary, Alice, Joy, Fiona, Julie, and Sabrina until my bus arrived at around 10 after 6. Oranne and Camille rode the bus today, too, so I talked with them for a little bit. When I got home, I ate a snack and then attempted to pack my suitcase a little. That didn't go to well, though. I hardly got anything packed. I'll probably save that until tomorrow just before Thomas comes to get me ;D!
It was Anne's birthday yesterday, but since we didn't get the chance yesterday, we went over tonight to wish her a happy birthday. We drank a little champagne, ate some puffy cracker things, and talked. Mainly we discussed tomorrow and how the weekend is going to play out. I'm going with them to Normandy tomorrow afternoon until Monday. Anne's side of the family is having a reunion there, and we'll be staying in a large cabin together. They invited me along to watch the kids. That said, I don't know if I will have Internet time (or access!), so I probably won't be on for a few days. I'll do a good job writing in my written journal and then type that up for you when I get back. :)!
Bon week-end!
et Jouyeux Paques!
<333Miranda
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
95 Days.
Today wasn't really anything special. It started with math at 9 this morning. The lesson was actually really simple and I was able to do the work on the board without any problem! That's definitely a first! haha! After class, Marine handed in her homework from last week (since she was absent) and I slipped mine in there, too. I hope he doesn't notice and corrects it anyways. If not, oh well I guess. It's not like it was that hard to copy the answers off the answer sheet.. haha.
I had two hours of theatre starting at 10. The theatre itself was occupied by someone else, so our class was held in a room I'd never been in before in the front building. This room was fairly large with a nice sized window overlooking the front of the school. There were lots of chairs and a projector screen was pulled down in the front. It looked to me like a staff meeting room. But anyway, I spent the beginning of class watching Alice and Wendie rehearse their scene. After they'd gone through it a coupld times, we went to track down my teacher to get the book with my scene. There is a professional comedian who comes in and works with us on Wednesdays, so my teacher sometimes leaves the class for a while. We seriously spent a good half hour trying to find her. Once we did, she told us Morgan had the book. She said Morgan was in the CDI, and after we found her, we should bring the book to her in the staff room and she'd make us photocopies of the text. Alice, Wendie, and I went to the CDI as directed and looked for Morgan. There are a tonn of "work rooms" to look in, and we could nottt find her! I think it took about 10 minutes before we opened the last door and found Morgan inside. After we finally got the book, we took it to the staff lounge back in the front building. My math teacher was in there (yipee.) and he told us he hadn't seen our teacher. That sent us running around some more. We looked and looked (and spent a long time running between buildings in the rain) and eventually we gave up and went back to the classroom. Alice, Wendie, and I talked for a little while and FINALLY our teacher came in. We gave her the book and she made us the copies. By the time we were finished dividing up the monologue into two parts, Alice and I only had a half hour to read through it. That was plenty of time in my book, though. I was ready to get out of there.
My host mom came and picked me up after school. When I got home, I ate lunch and then watched "Fargo" with Pierre. I dunno why everyone likes that movie so much! I thought it was really dumbb! Anyway, after that, Pierre went to the Kiné and I went up to my room to review a little for the Bac Blanc tomorrow. I didn't accomplish a whole lot, though. Instead, I spent my time looking through my old pictures on my camera and listening to my ipod. Lol, very productive. That's going to get me a good score on my test tomorrow, for sure :P!
After Pierre came home, I went downstairs and had a snack with him. Then Nathan and his mom arrived to take me to music. I was too tired to put a whole lot of effort into that today. I basically sat there and played half asleep.
When I got home, Pierre was getting ready to leave for dance. I got a little computer time in while he was gone, and then went with my host mom to go pick him up. We just finished eating, and I didn't write my blog last time I got on, so I thought I'd do that quick before I go to bed.
Wish me luck on the Bac Blanc tomorroww!
Goodnight!
<3Miranda
Oh, and yes, Zach, the Pokémon cards were in that package. I gave them to my host brother and he was really excited. He told me to tell you that you are "très sympa!" and "Merci beaucoup !" I'm also supposed to give you a big "la bise" when I get home, so be expecting that ;D!
I had two hours of theatre starting at 10. The theatre itself was occupied by someone else, so our class was held in a room I'd never been in before in the front building. This room was fairly large with a nice sized window overlooking the front of the school. There were lots of chairs and a projector screen was pulled down in the front. It looked to me like a staff meeting room. But anyway, I spent the beginning of class watching Alice and Wendie rehearse their scene. After they'd gone through it a coupld times, we went to track down my teacher to get the book with my scene. There is a professional comedian who comes in and works with us on Wednesdays, so my teacher sometimes leaves the class for a while. We seriously spent a good half hour trying to find her. Once we did, she told us Morgan had the book. She said Morgan was in the CDI, and after we found her, we should bring the book to her in the staff room and she'd make us photocopies of the text. Alice, Wendie, and I went to the CDI as directed and looked for Morgan. There are a tonn of "work rooms" to look in, and we could nottt find her! I think it took about 10 minutes before we opened the last door and found Morgan inside. After we finally got the book, we took it to the staff lounge back in the front building. My math teacher was in there (yipee.) and he told us he hadn't seen our teacher. That sent us running around some more. We looked and looked (and spent a long time running between buildings in the rain) and eventually we gave up and went back to the classroom. Alice, Wendie, and I talked for a little while and FINALLY our teacher came in. We gave her the book and she made us the copies. By the time we were finished dividing up the monologue into two parts, Alice and I only had a half hour to read through it. That was plenty of time in my book, though. I was ready to get out of there.
My host mom came and picked me up after school. When I got home, I ate lunch and then watched "Fargo" with Pierre. I dunno why everyone likes that movie so much! I thought it was really dumbb! Anyway, after that, Pierre went to the Kiné and I went up to my room to review a little for the Bac Blanc tomorrow. I didn't accomplish a whole lot, though. Instead, I spent my time looking through my old pictures on my camera and listening to my ipod. Lol, very productive. That's going to get me a good score on my test tomorrow, for sure :P!
After Pierre came home, I went downstairs and had a snack with him. Then Nathan and his mom arrived to take me to music. I was too tired to put a whole lot of effort into that today. I basically sat there and played half asleep.
When I got home, Pierre was getting ready to leave for dance. I got a little computer time in while he was gone, and then went with my host mom to go pick him up. We just finished eating, and I didn't write my blog last time I got on, so I thought I'd do that quick before I go to bed.
Wish me luck on the Bac Blanc tomorroww!
Goodnight!
<3Miranda
Oh, and yes, Zach, the Pokémon cards were in that package. I gave them to my host brother and he was really excited. He told me to tell you that you are "très sympa!" and "Merci beaucoup !" I'm also supposed to give you a big "la bise" when I get home, so be expecting that ;D!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
96 Days
This morning when I woke up, I had a terribly sore throat! I think I caught the cold my host mom and Pierre both have. I've got cough drops now, though, so it's all good. :)!
Latin was first today. Before class, I hung out with Florian, Justine, and Claire in the hall. Florian insisted I tell some American jokes, so I told the only one I could think of- "Why did the chicken cross the road?" hahaha. No one found that very funny, but I explained it's probably one of the most well known jokes in America. Lol. After that, Florian told most of the jokes. One of them was really long and it took a ton of explaining before I actually got it, but it was kind of funny. I would tell you all, but I don't remember the whole thing, so it won't really make sense :/ sorry. In class, I actually was able to comprehend what was going on a bit. I understood almost completely one of the stories my teacher told! I didn't understand any of the Latin, though. ha. They were chopping up the sentences with lines and marking little u's on top of vowels and crazy stuff like that. I dunno what any of that means. I've never done that in English Latin before. Oh well, no biggie. My teacher doesn't expect anythingg out of me, so whatevs.
I had French next. We talked about the elements of theatre literature and read a couple examples. It was not overly exciting.
After French came 2 hours of history. We continued talking about World War One and ended at the part where the Americans come in to play. Then we watched a film, talked about that a little, and class was over.
My only other class today was French from 4-5. History ended at Noon, so that gave me lots of down time. I spent the first hour on facebook in the CDI. Sabrina and Justine were both in there, too, but they were working on homework and I didn't want to distract them. haha.
At one, Sab and I met up with Marion at the cantine and had lunch. Today I had potatoes in a sauce & shredded carrots for my entrée; pasta with a white sauce containing chunks of ham and cheese sprinkled on top for my main dish; and a chocolate mousse brownie for dessert :)! We sat on the top level of the cafeteria today! I love eating up there. It looks pretty much the same as the main level, but I think it's just the fact that it's different to be upstairs. I dunno. We don't have an upstairs in our cafeteria back home, so I find it cool! Laureen and Virginie found us a little later.
An hour later, Marion, Virginie, and Laureen had class. Sabrina and I went to the CPE and FINALLY the lady was there! We asked if I could take the Bac, and she said no. Unless it was a mandetory thing, it could not be arranged. That kind of disappoints me, but I can take the Bac Blanc (practice Bac) on Thursday this week, so I can still kind of see what it's like. After that, we went back to the CPI. I had Sabrina try and teach me how to write a commentaire, but it didn't work out so well. I didn't really understand the text extract and that made coming up with a "problématique" (a question you will spend the whole essay answering) awfully difficult. Sabrina then went on the computer and I looked through a book on theatre elements (the topic of the Bac Blanc Français). Gaetane came and sat down at the table with me, and she reviewed her SVT while I went through the theatre book. Afterwards, I had her help me with the commentaire. The two of us got a lot further. We found TWO problématiques for me to chose from and I finished my whole introduction by the time our free period was over. I still don't feel exceptionally confident with writing a commentaire, but I'll just do what I can. If I don't succeed, it doesn't matter!
At 5, I was done with school. My host mom said she'd come and pick me up, so I waited for her out front. Not many other people were leaving (they either had class or were hanging out in the CDI), so I sat and listened to my iPod while I waited. Marine, Justine, and Jeremy showed up a little later and hung out with me for a bit, but then they had to catch their train, so they left. It wasn't much longer though until my host mom arrived and brought me home. I ate a nutella/peanut butter sandwich and a small piece of sugar pie for snack. Then I started watching FARGO: The Movie! :D! I'd never seen that before, and Thomas had a copy, so he let us barrow it. I didn't finish it this afternoon, though, because Pierre had something on TV he wanted to watch, so I will finish it up tomorrow afternoon.
Short day tomorrow!
:D!
bon soirée!
<3Mirandaa
Latin was first today. Before class, I hung out with Florian, Justine, and Claire in the hall. Florian insisted I tell some American jokes, so I told the only one I could think of- "Why did the chicken cross the road?" hahaha. No one found that very funny, but I explained it's probably one of the most well known jokes in America. Lol. After that, Florian told most of the jokes. One of them was really long and it took a ton of explaining before I actually got it, but it was kind of funny. I would tell you all, but I don't remember the whole thing, so it won't really make sense :/ sorry. In class, I actually was able to comprehend what was going on a bit. I understood almost completely one of the stories my teacher told! I didn't understand any of the Latin, though. ha. They were chopping up the sentences with lines and marking little u's on top of vowels and crazy stuff like that. I dunno what any of that means. I've never done that in English Latin before. Oh well, no biggie. My teacher doesn't expect anythingg out of me, so whatevs.
I had French next. We talked about the elements of theatre literature and read a couple examples. It was not overly exciting.
After French came 2 hours of history. We continued talking about World War One and ended at the part where the Americans come in to play. Then we watched a film, talked about that a little, and class was over.
My only other class today was French from 4-5. History ended at Noon, so that gave me lots of down time. I spent the first hour on facebook in the CDI. Sabrina and Justine were both in there, too, but they were working on homework and I didn't want to distract them. haha.
At one, Sab and I met up with Marion at the cantine and had lunch. Today I had potatoes in a sauce & shredded carrots for my entrée; pasta with a white sauce containing chunks of ham and cheese sprinkled on top for my main dish; and a chocolate mousse brownie for dessert :)! We sat on the top level of the cafeteria today! I love eating up there. It looks pretty much the same as the main level, but I think it's just the fact that it's different to be upstairs. I dunno. We don't have an upstairs in our cafeteria back home, so I find it cool! Laureen and Virginie found us a little later.
An hour later, Marion, Virginie, and Laureen had class. Sabrina and I went to the CPE and FINALLY the lady was there! We asked if I could take the Bac, and she said no. Unless it was a mandetory thing, it could not be arranged. That kind of disappoints me, but I can take the Bac Blanc (practice Bac) on Thursday this week, so I can still kind of see what it's like. After that, we went back to the CPI. I had Sabrina try and teach me how to write a commentaire, but it didn't work out so well. I didn't really understand the text extract and that made coming up with a "problématique" (a question you will spend the whole essay answering) awfully difficult. Sabrina then went on the computer and I looked through a book on theatre elements (the topic of the Bac Blanc Français). Gaetane came and sat down at the table with me, and she reviewed her SVT while I went through the theatre book. Afterwards, I had her help me with the commentaire. The two of us got a lot further. We found TWO problématiques for me to chose from and I finished my whole introduction by the time our free period was over. I still don't feel exceptionally confident with writing a commentaire, but I'll just do what I can. If I don't succeed, it doesn't matter!
At 5, I was done with school. My host mom said she'd come and pick me up, so I waited for her out front. Not many other people were leaving (they either had class or were hanging out in the CDI), so I sat and listened to my iPod while I waited. Marine, Justine, and Jeremy showed up a little later and hung out with me for a bit, but then they had to catch their train, so they left. It wasn't much longer though until my host mom arrived and brought me home. I ate a nutella/peanut butter sandwich and a small piece of sugar pie for snack. Then I started watching FARGO: The Movie! :D! I'd never seen that before, and Thomas had a copy, so he let us barrow it. I didn't finish it this afternoon, though, because Pierre had something on TV he wanted to watch, so I will finish it up tomorrow afternoon.
Short day tomorrow!
:D!
bon soirée!
<3Mirandaa
Monday, April 6, 2009
97 days
Today was decent, I suppose. I got to sleep in until 8:30 today, which was nicee :)! My first class was Anglais Complementaire at 10. We went over that pheonetics worksheet from a couple weeks ago. Hah. I did terrible. My teacher kept reminding me that this was BRITISH English taught in the classroom and my American accent did not work for what we were doing. He kept sayings about people who picked up American accents because they would listen to music or watch TV in English, and that was not what we were learning. He made me say a few words with my accent, and then would repeat it like he already knew. He would tell the class, "Yes, yes. 'WORD HERE' is how you would say it with the American accent." I realized that that is the difference between my two English teachers; one thinks he knows everything and is not willing to admit when he learns something from me and the other one kind of uses me as a helper when she isn't sure about something or has me tell how I would say a certain expression or phrase in American English. She's actually willing to learn from me, and I don't like to seem like I know it all or anything (because I soo do not!), but I like being able to help out like that when I can. It makes me feel kind of smart (and I haven't gotten that feeling a whole lot. haha.)!
After English Comp., I spent an hour in town with Alice, Wendie, and Joy. I ate a "petit pain au chocolat" while they ate lunch. Afterwards, we returned to school for Theatre. Jane and I found a new script today! It's actually a monologue, but my teacher is going to cut it up into two parts so I don't have as much to say (and so I am not alone!). Other than talking, that's really all I accomplished in that class today.
I ate a quick lunch with Marion, Virginie, Sabrina, and Laureen, and then Sabrina and I went to Anglais LV1. First off, we recited one stanza of a poem from memory. It was pretty simple. The first stanza (the one I chose) went like this:
I can change the world
With my own two hands
Make a better place
With my own two hands
Make a kinder place
With my own two hands
With my own
With my own two hands
After that, we got a hand out with a couple poems about growing up. Then weee had to write poems about growing up! haha! I suckk at poetry! Luckily, we got to work with the person next to us, so it wasn't quitee as bad.. lol. Class ended before we finished, though, and it was time forrr--
SVT. That class is not overly exciting. We're still talking about the reproductive system and I'm a little bored with that. I talked with Sabrina a little to pass the time. I don't even remember what it was we talked about, but whatever. It kept me from falling asleep.
After SVT, we had Anglais LV1 again. We finished up our poems and then read them aloud. We voted on our favorite and Valentine & Marion won :)! Their poem was put on the wall. Then we got some more handouts and read through those & did a worksheet. We finished class a little early, so our teacher let us play pictionary. It was in French, so I didn't do wonderful at guessing a lot of the things.. haha. That was fun anyway, though.
The last class of the day was French. I honestly can't tell you much about that class because I didn't really listen today. I drew a little in my binder and talked with Sabrina, Nicolas, and Gaetane. We did get a big handout, though! That had something to do with the thème we wrote at the end of March.
After school, I took the bus home and when I arrived, their was a package waiting for me on the table! It was from my mom, and it had tons of Easter candy and a couple Seventeen magazines that she'd received in the mail for me. I read through those and shared the candy with my family. Then I hung out with Pierre a little before we ate dinner. After dinner, not much has happened. I basically just got myself online.. haha.
I'll write again tomorrowww:)
Bonne soirée!
<3Miranda
After English Comp., I spent an hour in town with Alice, Wendie, and Joy. I ate a "petit pain au chocolat" while they ate lunch. Afterwards, we returned to school for Theatre. Jane and I found a new script today! It's actually a monologue, but my teacher is going to cut it up into two parts so I don't have as much to say (and so I am not alone!). Other than talking, that's really all I accomplished in that class today.
I ate a quick lunch with Marion, Virginie, Sabrina, and Laureen, and then Sabrina and I went to Anglais LV1. First off, we recited one stanza of a poem from memory. It was pretty simple. The first stanza (the one I chose) went like this:
I can change the world
With my own two hands
Make a better place
With my own two hands
Make a kinder place
With my own two hands
With my own
With my own two hands
After that, we got a hand out with a couple poems about growing up. Then weee had to write poems about growing up! haha! I suckk at poetry! Luckily, we got to work with the person next to us, so it wasn't quitee as bad.. lol. Class ended before we finished, though, and it was time forrr--
SVT. That class is not overly exciting. We're still talking about the reproductive system and I'm a little bored with that. I talked with Sabrina a little to pass the time. I don't even remember what it was we talked about, but whatever. It kept me from falling asleep.
After SVT, we had Anglais LV1 again. We finished up our poems and then read them aloud. We voted on our favorite and Valentine & Marion won :)! Their poem was put on the wall. Then we got some more handouts and read through those & did a worksheet. We finished class a little early, so our teacher let us play pictionary. It was in French, so I didn't do wonderful at guessing a lot of the things.. haha. That was fun anyway, though.
The last class of the day was French. I honestly can't tell you much about that class because I didn't really listen today. I drew a little in my binder and talked with Sabrina, Nicolas, and Gaetane. We did get a big handout, though! That had something to do with the thème we wrote at the end of March.
After school, I took the bus home and when I arrived, their was a package waiting for me on the table! It was from my mom, and it had tons of Easter candy and a couple Seventeen magazines that she'd received in the mail for me. I read through those and shared the candy with my family. Then I hung out with Pierre a little before we ate dinner. After dinner, not much has happened. I basically just got myself online.. haha.
I'll write again tomorrowww:)
Bonne soirée!
<3Miranda
Sunday, April 5, 2009
98 days.
This morning I slept in 'til around 9:30/10:00. That was awesome. haha. After I was ready for the day, I ate breakfast with Pierre. My host mom was out grocery shopping, and she arrived shortly after we'd finished. I helped her unload everything from the car and put it all away.
Before going to Thomas's house, Pierre and I made cakes. I made one out of the "chocolat" book Annick gave me and Pierre made one out of his own collection of recipes. My recipe was actually for double chocolate cookies, but I didn't feel like rolling out balls for the cookies, so I made it into a cake. I also added in some of the chocolate chips my mom sent me :). If she reads this, she should send me another package. ;D!
An hour later, we left for Thomas's house. Annick, Madame Noëlle (Anne's mom), and Cathrine (Anne's sister) were already there. Since it was another nice day, we all hung out in the backyard until the meal was ready. I don't remember what it was called, but we had some kind of traditional French meal where you melt the cheese in a machine thing in the middle of the table, and then you drizzle it over potatoes and meat. I tried a little red wine, too. That was strong stuff today! It kind of burned going down! hah! I only had a tiny bit of that. Next up was salad with an oil dressing. Then for dessert we had a choice of fruit salad, Annick's apple pie, or Pierre's cake. I had a little piece of both the apple pie and Pierre's cake.
After eating, we went back outside and sat around the picnic table. Anne brought out my cake and coffee. I didn't drink anything, but I tried my cookie cake, and it was delish. Everyone else liked it, too. They told me that when I go with them to Normandy next weekend, I'm supposed to bring along a dessert, haha!
We took a walk around town after everyone was finished with their coffee. The kids fed bread to some horses we came across. I think they belonged to some friends of Anne and Thomas. On the walk I also saw an old castle. There was a big brick wall around it, so I couldn't see very well, but it was cool. I wish I would have brought along my camera! Oh well, I'm sure we'll go on a walk around Mt. St. Eloi at least once more before I leave.
Once we got back from the walk, we spent the rest of the afternoon around the picnic table in the backyard. Anne brought out some more drinks (this time it was Coke, orange juice, and beer), but I wasn't really thirsty so I didn't have anything. I did eat a little more of my cake, though ;D!
We came home around 7:00 this evening. I went up to my room and worked on my practice commentaire (to prep for the Bac Blanc), but I didn't get very far since I didn't understand the text. I'm going to have Sabrina help me with it tomorrow during a break. A couple hours later, I went downstairs for dinner. I only ate a little bit tonight since I'm still full from lunch! lol!
But now I'm going to finish responding to emails and then get to bed!
à demain!
<3Miranda
P.S. Mus- I haven't replied to your facebook thing because I can't get on facebook unless I'm on the computer at school. Sorry. I will be sure and do so the next time I sign on, though.
Before going to Thomas's house, Pierre and I made cakes. I made one out of the "chocolat" book Annick gave me and Pierre made one out of his own collection of recipes. My recipe was actually for double chocolate cookies, but I didn't feel like rolling out balls for the cookies, so I made it into a cake. I also added in some of the chocolate chips my mom sent me :). If she reads this, she should send me another package. ;D!
An hour later, we left for Thomas's house. Annick, Madame Noëlle (Anne's mom), and Cathrine (Anne's sister) were already there. Since it was another nice day, we all hung out in the backyard until the meal was ready. I don't remember what it was called, but we had some kind of traditional French meal where you melt the cheese in a machine thing in the middle of the table, and then you drizzle it over potatoes and meat. I tried a little red wine, too. That was strong stuff today! It kind of burned going down! hah! I only had a tiny bit of that. Next up was salad with an oil dressing. Then for dessert we had a choice of fruit salad, Annick's apple pie, or Pierre's cake. I had a little piece of both the apple pie and Pierre's cake.
After eating, we went back outside and sat around the picnic table. Anne brought out my cake and coffee. I didn't drink anything, but I tried my cookie cake, and it was delish. Everyone else liked it, too. They told me that when I go with them to Normandy next weekend, I'm supposed to bring along a dessert, haha!
We took a walk around town after everyone was finished with their coffee. The kids fed bread to some horses we came across. I think they belonged to some friends of Anne and Thomas. On the walk I also saw an old castle. There was a big brick wall around it, so I couldn't see very well, but it was cool. I wish I would have brought along my camera! Oh well, I'm sure we'll go on a walk around Mt. St. Eloi at least once more before I leave.
Once we got back from the walk, we spent the rest of the afternoon around the picnic table in the backyard. Anne brought out some more drinks (this time it was Coke, orange juice, and beer), but I wasn't really thirsty so I didn't have anything. I did eat a little more of my cake, though ;D!
We came home around 7:00 this evening. I went up to my room and worked on my practice commentaire (to prep for the Bac Blanc), but I didn't get very far since I didn't understand the text. I'm going to have Sabrina help me with it tomorrow during a break. A couple hours later, I went downstairs for dinner. I only ate a little bit tonight since I'm still full from lunch! lol!
But now I'm going to finish responding to emails and then get to bed!
à demain!
<3Miranda
P.S. Mus- I haven't replied to your facebook thing because I can't get on facebook unless I'm on the computer at school. Sorry. I will be sure and do so the next time I sign on, though.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
99 Days
I'm not looking forward to leaving by any means, but that gives me a post title every day. haha.
Today was busy. It started out early with school from 8-10AM. Today our DS (test) was over a recent géography lesson. I am super happy to tell you that I did it correctly this time!!! I wrote an actual essay in French on the different "milieux" of France! (Sorry, I can't think of the appropriate word in English for translation.) I created an outline to start out with. Then I wrote an introductory paragraph, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion!! Granted, it wasn't the same quality work I would do in English, but I'm really proud of what I managed to accomplish :D!
After school, my host mom picked me up and took me back to Roclincourt where there was a bicycle race. It had started at 8:30, but I got to watch cyclers cruise by for the last hour or two. I hung out with Simon, Emodine, Pierre-Antoine, Antoine, and some other folks from the village in front of the "Salle des Fêtes." They were selling refreshments and there was a "Guess the weight of the basket of fruit (or veggies)" contest, as well as a chance to win a boquet of flowers or a chicken. The town's giant was out, too. That's kind of a complicated thing to explain, but in short, each town around here creates a giant for the Festival of Giants wich is sometime later this spring (I dunno exactly when).
The race was really interesting. Each time a cyclist came by, a motorcycle arrived just ahead of him, and then a car(s) would follow him. The number of cars varied from one to 7 or 8! Normally, they had a spare bike or tires on top. After all the cyclists had come by, there was a short parade type thing and the cars threw out candy and pamphlets and other stuff. I got a tourism guide to Arras and some candy.
When the event ended just before noon, I helped clean up a little bit. Simon gave me a couple of the balloons that had been used as decorations. I later handed those off to Thomas's kids. My host mom returned to see how things were going and to pick me up. Today there was an open house at Pierre's school, so we went to that for a little while. Then we quickly stopped at home to drop Pierre off, and my host mom and I went to the after party at Mt. St. Eloi for the cyclists and people involved with the whole deal. I met Miss Artois-H(something), and talked with her for a while. A guy had insisted on getting a picture with the two of us, too, so I'll put that up for y'all when I get a chance.
After mingling a bit, my host mom and I made a quick stop at Thomas's house (since we were in town) and gave the kids a couple things from the parade (including my balloons). Then we returned to our house for lunch. I watched a little TV with Pierre afterwards, and then got ready to go out with Annick. She arrived at 3:00 to take me into town. Our first stop was the librarie (a bookstore), where I got 5 cookbooks with different subjects. I chose crêpes, bread, potatoes, and chocolate. Since we had bought 3 from the same collection, we recieved a cookbook on verrines for free :)! I'm really excited about that! I am going to make you all dinner when I get back, if you want :D!
Our second stop was at Phildar (i thinkk?), where I picked out the color material I wanted for the scarf Annick is making me. I chose black, basically because it goes with everything. I was debating on the white, but I already have a white scarf, so I decided to go with the blackk. We walked around town for a while. I saw my French teacher out with her kids and said Bonjour to her. Then we went into a few other stores. Annick wanted to buy me a purse, too, but I told her that it wasn't necessary. She'd spent plenty on me already. I did allow her to buy me a "petit pain au chocolat" on the way back to her house, though. That was really, really good. It was still a little warm, so the chocolate was all melty and the flaky part of the croissant was soft. :)
Back at Annick's house, we each had a drink and talked for a while. Then we went up to her room and she showed me her clothes she was going to give away. I took a few of those off her hands, as well as a watch. Then she showed me her shoe closet and holy crap. I think she has more shoes than Rica's mom! The closet is stuffed full of shoeboxes. She told me she has 60-some pair shoved in there!! I found that pretty incredible. She has a million handbags and tons of jewelry, too. When we had finished looking at everything, we went back downstairs and Samuel arrived. He talked to us for a while and waited around until my host mom and Pierre showed up. Then he went to get cheeseburgers & fries from the "Frite Maison" for dinner. After everyone had finished eating, my host mom, Pierre, and I went back to Roclincourt. When we got home, we saw Vincent, Arlette, and her husband (forgot his name) at the fries shack, so we said hi and talked with them for a little bit. Then we came home and I got on the computer and voilà!
Tomorrow we're going to eat lunch at Thomas's house. :)
I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow evening.
à demain!
<3333Miranda
By the way, if you click the link where it says "other AFS blogs," MY BLOG comes up on the AFS pageeee :)!
Today was busy. It started out early with school from 8-10AM. Today our DS (test) was over a recent géography lesson. I am super happy to tell you that I did it correctly this time!!! I wrote an actual essay in French on the different "milieux" of France! (Sorry, I can't think of the appropriate word in English for translation.) I created an outline to start out with. Then I wrote an introductory paragraph, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion!! Granted, it wasn't the same quality work I would do in English, but I'm really proud of what I managed to accomplish :D!
After school, my host mom picked me up and took me back to Roclincourt where there was a bicycle race. It had started at 8:30, but I got to watch cyclers cruise by for the last hour or two. I hung out with Simon, Emodine, Pierre-Antoine, Antoine, and some other folks from the village in front of the "Salle des Fêtes." They were selling refreshments and there was a "Guess the weight of the basket of fruit (or veggies)" contest, as well as a chance to win a boquet of flowers or a chicken. The town's giant was out, too. That's kind of a complicated thing to explain, but in short, each town around here creates a giant for the Festival of Giants wich is sometime later this spring (I dunno exactly when).
The race was really interesting. Each time a cyclist came by, a motorcycle arrived just ahead of him, and then a car(s) would follow him. The number of cars varied from one to 7 or 8! Normally, they had a spare bike or tires on top. After all the cyclists had come by, there was a short parade type thing and the cars threw out candy and pamphlets and other stuff. I got a tourism guide to Arras and some candy.
When the event ended just before noon, I helped clean up a little bit. Simon gave me a couple of the balloons that had been used as decorations. I later handed those off to Thomas's kids. My host mom returned to see how things were going and to pick me up. Today there was an open house at Pierre's school, so we went to that for a little while. Then we quickly stopped at home to drop Pierre off, and my host mom and I went to the after party at Mt. St. Eloi for the cyclists and people involved with the whole deal. I met Miss Artois-H(something), and talked with her for a while. A guy had insisted on getting a picture with the two of us, too, so I'll put that up for y'all when I get a chance.
After mingling a bit, my host mom and I made a quick stop at Thomas's house (since we were in town) and gave the kids a couple things from the parade (including my balloons). Then we returned to our house for lunch. I watched a little TV with Pierre afterwards, and then got ready to go out with Annick. She arrived at 3:00 to take me into town. Our first stop was the librarie (a bookstore), where I got 5 cookbooks with different subjects. I chose crêpes, bread, potatoes, and chocolate. Since we had bought 3 from the same collection, we recieved a cookbook on verrines for free :)! I'm really excited about that! I am going to make you all dinner when I get back, if you want :D!
Our second stop was at Phildar (i thinkk?), where I picked out the color material I wanted for the scarf Annick is making me. I chose black, basically because it goes with everything. I was debating on the white, but I already have a white scarf, so I decided to go with the blackk. We walked around town for a while. I saw my French teacher out with her kids and said Bonjour to her. Then we went into a few other stores. Annick wanted to buy me a purse, too, but I told her that it wasn't necessary. She'd spent plenty on me already. I did allow her to buy me a "petit pain au chocolat" on the way back to her house, though. That was really, really good. It was still a little warm, so the chocolate was all melty and the flaky part of the croissant was soft. :)
Back at Annick's house, we each had a drink and talked for a while. Then we went up to her room and she showed me her clothes she was going to give away. I took a few of those off her hands, as well as a watch. Then she showed me her shoe closet and holy crap. I think she has more shoes than Rica's mom! The closet is stuffed full of shoeboxes. She told me she has 60-some pair shoved in there!! I found that pretty incredible. She has a million handbags and tons of jewelry, too. When we had finished looking at everything, we went back downstairs and Samuel arrived. He talked to us for a while and waited around until my host mom and Pierre showed up. Then he went to get cheeseburgers & fries from the "Frite Maison" for dinner. After everyone had finished eating, my host mom, Pierre, and I went back to Roclincourt. When we got home, we saw Vincent, Arlette, and her husband (forgot his name) at the fries shack, so we said hi and talked with them for a little bit. Then we came home and I got on the computer and voilà!
Tomorrow we're going to eat lunch at Thomas's house. :)
I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow evening.
à demain!
<3333Miranda
By the way, if you click the link where it says "other AFS blogs," MY BLOG comes up on the AFS pageeee :)!
Friday, April 3, 2009
100 Days To Go
& they are going to go by way too fast!
This morning I got up kind of late. I'm not really a morning person here anymore. When I wake up, I don't jump out of bed and start getting ready right away, just because I get to go to school again. That's kind of worn off. Don't get me wrong or anything, I still looove being at school here, but the excitement has faded a bit. It's turned into just a normal part of my day.
At school I had Latin first hour. I got to the hallway outside the room a little earlier than normal, so I talked with Florian, Claire, and Justine. When the teacher arrived, we went into the room and that began my hour of complete incomprehension. lol. Every day in Latin is like my first day at school all over again; I don't understand a thing. I didn't even bother to bring my Latin notebook today, since I've only written, like, three pages in it the whole time. Most of that isn't even Latin; it's drawings. haha. Instead, I got out my math homework that was due yesterday and worked on that a little (with the help of the answer sheet ;D)! I got bored of that pretty fast, though, so I went back to doodling.
After Latin, Justine and I went up to the 6th floor for French. Once again, we talked about Manon Lescaut. We started another outline thing for an "Orale" on the third extract. I worked with Sabrina and Camille since Marion (the girl next to me) was catching up on some of the things she missed yesterday. We did not get a whole lot done. I don't think anyone did, though. Hah. There wasn't really a whole lot of time to work after we finished taking notes, so we'll probably continue that next week.
Once French was over at 10, I was done with class until Parcours at 4. Sabrina and I went to the CDI. I finished up my math and then finished up my letter I started writing Valerie earlier this week :D! Then Sabrina signed me on a computer and I got on facebook a little bit. At noon, I went with Sabrina and Alicia into town. Alicia bought herself lunch, and then we went to sit and talk by the fountain by the church. I brought my yearbook today because Sabrina wanted to see it. We looked at that and I explained the different clubs and homecoming and prom and all that stuff. They thought it was the coolest thing that there was so much to do at school. That is one thing I do kind of miss though. I wish they had clubs or activities for students to join, or school dances! That would be fuuuun :D!
At one o'clock, Sabrina and I returned to school and met up with Marion at the cantine for lunch. Virginie and Laureen joined us a little while later. Ugh. Lunch today was not one of my favorites. First of all, I was going to get some pasta salad stuff, but the girl in front of me finished it offffff! That kind of irritated me, but it was worse when there wasn't any yogurt either, so I was forced to pick something off the salad bar. I tried this veggie salad stuff, but I didn't like it very much, so I didn't eat much of that. I also found a small bone in my fish today, and after that I couldn't get myself to eat anymore of it. Needless to say, I didn't eat much and was still hungry when I left. >.<
After lunch, Virginie and Laureen went to class and Marion, Sabrina & I went back to the CDI. Marion worked on her homework for an hour and Sabrina and I talked about her English Concours project. When Marion had finished, the three of us met back up with Alicia, Virginie, and Laureen. We left the school again and this time we went to a park by Lycée Robespierre (another high school in town). The weather was once again really nice today (although not quite as warm as yesterday). We sat down on a grassy hill and talked, took pictures, and picked daisies :)! There are miniature daisies growing here like dandilions in Fargo. It's so cute! I love daisies :D!
When the hour approached 4:00, we headed back to school for Parcours. Today we were with the teacher I addressed as "tu" again. Hah woops :S! We reviewed Chapter 6 of the geography lesson to prepare for the DS tomorrow. She asked me a couple times if I understood, and when I would reply no, she would reexplain it to me. ha. It was nice, but I was kind of embarrassed for stopping the rest of the class (although I don't think they cared much). During the break, she sat down with me and went through the notes I'd copied during history class. She made a few corrections and then made me tell her what I understood and didn't understand. Then she'd explain the things I didn't know. After the break, she had me read a little box on the review worksheet. I read with an accent (obviously) and she tried to help me fix it by having me read it over and over and repeating the "R" words after her until I got close enough to call it good. haha. I reeeeeeeally exagerated the R the first time I repeated and the whole class laughed. It was pretty funny, though. Sabrina said it sounded like a German accent. haha. After that, a few people around me tried to teach me how to make the R sound. I STILLL CAN'T DO IT! I tried and tried. Then we gave up on that and they started having me say different people's names with my American accent. Hah. That was a little easier :P! Anyways, Parcours ended at 6. I met up with Vincent outside the school and took the bus home with him again.
At home, I reviewed a little more history for tomorrow. I really want to do well on my DS (or at least decent)! Then I ate dinner and got on the computerr :)! I'm gonna hit the sack now, though, because it's getting pretty late and I'm tiiiiired!
à demain!
<33333333miranda
This morning I got up kind of late. I'm not really a morning person here anymore. When I wake up, I don't jump out of bed and start getting ready right away, just because I get to go to school again. That's kind of worn off. Don't get me wrong or anything, I still looove being at school here, but the excitement has faded a bit. It's turned into just a normal part of my day.
At school I had Latin first hour. I got to the hallway outside the room a little earlier than normal, so I talked with Florian, Claire, and Justine. When the teacher arrived, we went into the room and that began my hour of complete incomprehension. lol. Every day in Latin is like my first day at school all over again; I don't understand a thing. I didn't even bother to bring my Latin notebook today, since I've only written, like, three pages in it the whole time. Most of that isn't even Latin; it's drawings. haha. Instead, I got out my math homework that was due yesterday and worked on that a little (with the help of the answer sheet ;D)! I got bored of that pretty fast, though, so I went back to doodling.
After Latin, Justine and I went up to the 6th floor for French. Once again, we talked about Manon Lescaut. We started another outline thing for an "Orale" on the third extract. I worked with Sabrina and Camille since Marion (the girl next to me) was catching up on some of the things she missed yesterday. We did not get a whole lot done. I don't think anyone did, though. Hah. There wasn't really a whole lot of time to work after we finished taking notes, so we'll probably continue that next week.
Once French was over at 10, I was done with class until Parcours at 4. Sabrina and I went to the CDI. I finished up my math and then finished up my letter I started writing Valerie earlier this week :D! Then Sabrina signed me on a computer and I got on facebook a little bit. At noon, I went with Sabrina and Alicia into town. Alicia bought herself lunch, and then we went to sit and talk by the fountain by the church. I brought my yearbook today because Sabrina wanted to see it. We looked at that and I explained the different clubs and homecoming and prom and all that stuff. They thought it was the coolest thing that there was so much to do at school. That is one thing I do kind of miss though. I wish they had clubs or activities for students to join, or school dances! That would be fuuuun :D!
At one o'clock, Sabrina and I returned to school and met up with Marion at the cantine for lunch. Virginie and Laureen joined us a little while later. Ugh. Lunch today was not one of my favorites. First of all, I was going to get some pasta salad stuff, but the girl in front of me finished it offffff! That kind of irritated me, but it was worse when there wasn't any yogurt either, so I was forced to pick something off the salad bar. I tried this veggie salad stuff, but I didn't like it very much, so I didn't eat much of that. I also found a small bone in my fish today, and after that I couldn't get myself to eat anymore of it. Needless to say, I didn't eat much and was still hungry when I left. >.<
After lunch, Virginie and Laureen went to class and Marion, Sabrina & I went back to the CDI. Marion worked on her homework for an hour and Sabrina and I talked about her English Concours project. When Marion had finished, the three of us met back up with Alicia, Virginie, and Laureen. We left the school again and this time we went to a park by Lycée Robespierre (another high school in town). The weather was once again really nice today (although not quite as warm as yesterday). We sat down on a grassy hill and talked, took pictures, and picked daisies :)! There are miniature daisies growing here like dandilions in Fargo. It's so cute! I love daisies :D!
When the hour approached 4:00, we headed back to school for Parcours. Today we were with the teacher I addressed as "tu" again. Hah woops :S! We reviewed Chapter 6 of the geography lesson to prepare for the DS tomorrow. She asked me a couple times if I understood, and when I would reply no, she would reexplain it to me. ha. It was nice, but I was kind of embarrassed for stopping the rest of the class (although I don't think they cared much). During the break, she sat down with me and went through the notes I'd copied during history class. She made a few corrections and then made me tell her what I understood and didn't understand. Then she'd explain the things I didn't know. After the break, she had me read a little box on the review worksheet. I read with an accent (obviously) and she tried to help me fix it by having me read it over and over and repeating the "R" words after her until I got close enough to call it good. haha. I reeeeeeeally exagerated the R the first time I repeated and the whole class laughed. It was pretty funny, though. Sabrina said it sounded like a German accent. haha. After that, a few people around me tried to teach me how to make the R sound. I STILLL CAN'T DO IT! I tried and tried. Then we gave up on that and they started having me say different people's names with my American accent. Hah. That was a little easier :P! Anyways, Parcours ended at 6. I met up with Vincent outside the school and took the bus home with him again.
At home, I reviewed a little more history for tomorrow. I really want to do well on my DS (or at least decent)! Then I ate dinner and got on the computerr :)! I'm gonna hit the sack now, though, because it's getting pretty late and I'm tiiiiired!
à demain!
<33333333miranda
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I'm in a good mood today
And that's really strange considering how tired I am! I had a really strange dream last night that woke me up, and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep after that. I got up just shortly after 5. Since I had the time, I went ahead and straightened my hair again today :)!
My first class was Histoire/Géo, where we continued to discuss World War 1. The first hour was spent taking notes and talking, and for the second hour, we watched a film about fighting in the trenches. I tried to pay attention to what the narrator of the film was saying, but that took too much concentration and I ended up just watching the pictures.
Next was French. I worked with Sabrina and Camille on an outline thing. We got a little off topic and really didn't get a whole lot accomplished. haha, woops. It didn't matter though, because we didn't do anything with this outline. I don't really understand what the point of it was, but whatever.
After French, I had mathh. I didn't feel like copying Sabrina's homework, so I didn't have my homework done today. For some reason, I was in an awesome mood, though. I volunteered to hand out the worksheets to the class. Hah. That didn't go so well. There were 4 worksheets in one pile. I originally tried to sort the different worksheets out, but then my teacher said I should give everyone the first worksheet, then the second, etc. I started doing that, and then came to the middle section and those people already had worksheets! I guess Saloua had been passing the stuff out, too on the other side, so that was confusing! Then I realized there weren't enough of the 4th worksheet. It was a mess. Rafaël told me he could take care of it, so I handed him the remaining stack of crap and sat back down. haha. I couldn't concentrate at all today. Instead, I daydreamed, talked, and ate some Oreos :D! The teacher gave us all of the answers to the homework on those worksheets, so I'll probably copy those down sometime before next week and hand that in. I guess I can still get credit for my homework if I do that!
There was no Anglais Complementaire today, so I went with Sabrina to find Marion in the CDI. She was working on some homework, so Sabrina and I hung around until she was finished with that. At about 12:20, we went to the cantine for lunch! We found Virginie and Laureen at a table, along with Claire and Florien from my Latin class and another guy. Florien and this other guy told me a million stories I don't feel like repeating and then made me tell them some jokes in English. haha. Then they left and it was just Virginie, Laureen, Marion, Sabrina, and I. They ranted about a few of their teachers the rest of the time, but since I didn't recongnize any of them, I kind of tuned that out.
After everyone was done eating, we went outside and sat in the grass! I think it got to the mid 60s today! I don't know exactly, but it was sooo nice! We sat there and talked and took some pictures. A while later, Marion had class and the rest of us went into the CDI. At 3, we decided to leave school and go on a walk. We stopped at a couple stores and Laureen bought some make up. Then we walked to the gare because Virginie needed a bus pass or something like that. It was getting late, though, and Sabrina and I had class at 4, so the two of us walked back to the school.
At 4, we had French again for 2 hours, this time. Surprisingly, the time went by relatively fast! My teacher handed back our thèmes, and the class graded their own. When she gave me mine, she sat down in the chair next to me and asked me what I wanted to do. We went through it and corrected my French mistakes together. Then I asked her if she could grade it because I really wanted to see what I earned. My format was set up muchhh different than everyone else's, so it was hard to grade, but my teacher did as I asked anyway. She gave me a 10/20! To most of you, that probably sounds terrible, but the system here is a little more harsh. 10/20 is pretty average. A lot of people had 12 and 11, so I felt pretty good about my score! :)! After that, we got a THIRD extract from Manon Lescaut! ahhhh! That book is seriously going to take us until the end of the year to get through. I really hope we stop with the third one! We discussed it a little and then class was over, so we'll continue with that tomorrow morning. There's something to look forward to! haha!
After school, I caught the bus home. Vincent rode today, so I talked with him on the way. Pierre was on the computer when I got home, so after eating a snack, I went up to my room and cleaned it up a little bit. Each day my room here starts to look more and more like my room back home. I'm hoping it never gets to be quite as bad as that, though. I want to be able to sleep in my bed, here ;D!
It's time for dinner now, though! We're havin' crêpes tonight :D!
I'll talk to you again tomorrow!
<3Miranda
My first class was Histoire/Géo, where we continued to discuss World War 1. The first hour was spent taking notes and talking, and for the second hour, we watched a film about fighting in the trenches. I tried to pay attention to what the narrator of the film was saying, but that took too much concentration and I ended up just watching the pictures.
Next was French. I worked with Sabrina and Camille on an outline thing. We got a little off topic and really didn't get a whole lot accomplished. haha, woops. It didn't matter though, because we didn't do anything with this outline. I don't really understand what the point of it was, but whatever.
After French, I had mathh. I didn't feel like copying Sabrina's homework, so I didn't have my homework done today. For some reason, I was in an awesome mood, though. I volunteered to hand out the worksheets to the class. Hah. That didn't go so well. There were 4 worksheets in one pile. I originally tried to sort the different worksheets out, but then my teacher said I should give everyone the first worksheet, then the second, etc. I started doing that, and then came to the middle section and those people already had worksheets! I guess Saloua had been passing the stuff out, too on the other side, so that was confusing! Then I realized there weren't enough of the 4th worksheet. It was a mess. Rafaël told me he could take care of it, so I handed him the remaining stack of crap and sat back down. haha. I couldn't concentrate at all today. Instead, I daydreamed, talked, and ate some Oreos :D! The teacher gave us all of the answers to the homework on those worksheets, so I'll probably copy those down sometime before next week and hand that in. I guess I can still get credit for my homework if I do that!
There was no Anglais Complementaire today, so I went with Sabrina to find Marion in the CDI. She was working on some homework, so Sabrina and I hung around until she was finished with that. At about 12:20, we went to the cantine for lunch! We found Virginie and Laureen at a table, along with Claire and Florien from my Latin class and another guy. Florien and this other guy told me a million stories I don't feel like repeating and then made me tell them some jokes in English. haha. Then they left and it was just Virginie, Laureen, Marion, Sabrina, and I. They ranted about a few of their teachers the rest of the time, but since I didn't recongnize any of them, I kind of tuned that out.
After everyone was done eating, we went outside and sat in the grass! I think it got to the mid 60s today! I don't know exactly, but it was sooo nice! We sat there and talked and took some pictures. A while later, Marion had class and the rest of us went into the CDI. At 3, we decided to leave school and go on a walk. We stopped at a couple stores and Laureen bought some make up. Then we walked to the gare because Virginie needed a bus pass or something like that. It was getting late, though, and Sabrina and I had class at 4, so the two of us walked back to the school.
At 4, we had French again for 2 hours, this time. Surprisingly, the time went by relatively fast! My teacher handed back our thèmes, and the class graded their own. When she gave me mine, she sat down in the chair next to me and asked me what I wanted to do. We went through it and corrected my French mistakes together. Then I asked her if she could grade it because I really wanted to see what I earned. My format was set up muchhh different than everyone else's, so it was hard to grade, but my teacher did as I asked anyway. She gave me a 10/20! To most of you, that probably sounds terrible, but the system here is a little more harsh. 10/20 is pretty average. A lot of people had 12 and 11, so I felt pretty good about my score! :)! After that, we got a THIRD extract from Manon Lescaut! ahhhh! That book is seriously going to take us until the end of the year to get through. I really hope we stop with the third one! We discussed it a little and then class was over, so we'll continue with that tomorrow morning. There's something to look forward to! haha!
After school, I caught the bus home. Vincent rode today, so I talked with him on the way. Pierre was on the computer when I got home, so after eating a snack, I went up to my room and cleaned it up a little bit. Each day my room here starts to look more and more like my room back home. I'm hoping it never gets to be quite as bad as that, though. I want to be able to sleep in my bed, here ;D!
It's time for dinner now, though! We're havin' crêpes tonight :D!
I'll talk to you again tomorrow!
<3Miranda
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Poissons d'avril!
It's pretty similar to the American holiday, except in France, they also stick paper fish on their friends' back. Last night, I found some cute fish on the Internet, so I cut those out an brought them to school along with a roll of tape. I was expecting it to be a bigger event than it turned out to be, though.
I got to school and waited outside with Marine. When the doors opened up just before nine, I went to math. I played that coin joke on Sabrina, where you trace the coin with a pencil and then tell the person it's impossible to balance it on their nose or something like that and after they try, it leaves a trail of lead on their face. That was successful! haha. Math itself was boring, though. I didn't really understand what was going on today, and we were sitting right in front so I couldn't even talk much :/!
After math, I stuck a few of my fish on people's backs xD! hahaha! That was kind of lame. I didn't manage to get even onee on without the person noticing. I was also the onlyy one participating in the whole fish thing. lol. I think it's mostly for the little kids, but I never got to do that when I was little, so I decided to get all into it today. haha.
My theatre class played a prank on the teacher today. Instead of going into the theatre like normal, we went upstairs above the theatre and stayed there until the teacher came looking for us. haha. After that, we went downstairs and had a speaker from the theatrical production in Arras last night. I guess my whole class went to that. I dunno if I was supposed to or not, but I never got the memo. Whatevs. The lady talked for the whole 2 hours and I was terribly bored. If I concentrated, I could get the gist of what she was saying, but I was too tired for that. Instead, I just sat there and daydreamed majority of the time. Hah.
When school was over, I attempted to find the bus by myself again. Sabrina, Marion, Virginie, and Laureen waited with me until their rides came. After that, I was on my own. I only remember 2 people that ride my bus, and neither one was there today. A few buses came and left, and they didn't have signs or anything on today, so I was afraid I'd missed mine. I was about to call my host mom when Oranne (the girl in my town who's going to the US for a year) came up to me. I was so glad to see her! She was waiting for the bus, too, so I hadn't missed it yet! haha! When on the way home.
After eating lunch, I watched a little TV with Pierre and then went upstairs to my room to take a nice, longgg nap. Unfortunately, by the time I finished eating and got upstairs, it was already 2:00. It took me a while to fall asleep, and then I had music at 5:30, so I had to get up around 4:30. I only ended up with about an hour and a half of sleep. That was not nearly enough for how tired I've been lately, but it still felt good. I wish I had a day of the week I could sleep in really late. The only day I don't have school is Sunday, and at 11:00 we either go to a relative's house for lunch, have people come over, or go to the cinéma. Monday was great until I had that English class added in at 10. Whatever, I guess I will just have to hibernate during the vacation at the end of the month! haha.
When I got up from my nap, I watched a little of Pirates of the Caribbean with Pierre. Just before 5:30, Nathan's mom showed up to take me to music. There were a lot of people gone today, so our already small group was even smaller this evening. Hah. It worked out, though.
After I got home, I went with my host mom to take Pierre to dance. Then a little later, I went with her again to pick him up. We ate dinner and then I got on the computerr.
I suppose since it's the end of another month, I will update you on my progress. I kind of blew off working on the accent, but, with the exception of the R and the U, I picked up the "northern accent" pretty well, anyway. Sabrina told me that if I get the R down, I won't sound American at all anymore. My speed has gotten much, muchhh better, too. I don't speak slow anymore (unless I'm trying to put together a really complicated sentence or something,) and at times I've even been told I speak fast for a French person. I don't have to think about what I want to say in English before I say it in French every time, either. There are some phrases I say that are completely automatic, and with those it would probably take me longer to think of how I would say it in English first. Also, the whole "la bise" thing isn't awkward anymore. That kind of took me a while to get used to. It was weird kissing people I didn't even know. It has kind of grown on me, though, so I no longer feel awkward about it. The only frustrating thing is that I'm short, so instead of kissing cheeks, I often end up kissing chins. haha. That kind of sucks. I've changed a bit physically, too (unfortunately). I've been breaking out and gaining weight, and I kneww this was going to happen, but dammit I was hoping I could somehow avoid it! I really don't wanna come back a chunker! :/ When we had our little get together with the AFSers on Saturday, the weight topic came up. Everyyone has rounded out. That's a really common thing for exchange kids because of all the change and stress and everything, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept. I think I will be okay, though, as long as I don't gain a whole lot more. The other thing that's kind of bugging me are my hilights. They've grown out a lot, and while my naturaly hair color blends in decently, I can still notice it. I'm really nervous about trying to get them redone in French, though. I don't want a miscommunication, there! haha! That could be bad. I also have no idea how much it costs, and I don't want to waste a bunch of money on that.
Soo, for the month of April, I'm going to try and work on pronouns! I've started using the 'le/la/les' and 'lui' a little, but I could use some practice with those, and I really need to work on the others. I'm also going to work on learning my colloquial French expressions. My class made up a long list of ones for me to learn. haha. That will be fun. If I get to it, I'll try and work on my "R" a little, too, but if not, I'll save that for next month. I've decided that my accent really is not as important as learning the language itself. If I talk like an American well then it's because I am an American, so who cares. The accent will come after the more important stuff. Physically, I don't really know what I can do. I'm just going to hope that I don't gain anymore weight. haha.
It's getting late, though, and I really need the sleep, so I'm getting off.
à demain!
<3miranda
I got to school and waited outside with Marine. When the doors opened up just before nine, I went to math. I played that coin joke on Sabrina, where you trace the coin with a pencil and then tell the person it's impossible to balance it on their nose or something like that and after they try, it leaves a trail of lead on their face. That was successful! haha. Math itself was boring, though. I didn't really understand what was going on today, and we were sitting right in front so I couldn't even talk much :/!
After math, I stuck a few of my fish on people's backs xD! hahaha! That was kind of lame. I didn't manage to get even onee on without the person noticing. I was also the onlyy one participating in the whole fish thing. lol. I think it's mostly for the little kids, but I never got to do that when I was little, so I decided to get all into it today. haha.
My theatre class played a prank on the teacher today. Instead of going into the theatre like normal, we went upstairs above the theatre and stayed there until the teacher came looking for us. haha. After that, we went downstairs and had a speaker from the theatrical production in Arras last night. I guess my whole class went to that. I dunno if I was supposed to or not, but I never got the memo. Whatevs. The lady talked for the whole 2 hours and I was terribly bored. If I concentrated, I could get the gist of what she was saying, but I was too tired for that. Instead, I just sat there and daydreamed majority of the time. Hah.
When school was over, I attempted to find the bus by myself again. Sabrina, Marion, Virginie, and Laureen waited with me until their rides came. After that, I was on my own. I only remember 2 people that ride my bus, and neither one was there today. A few buses came and left, and they didn't have signs or anything on today, so I was afraid I'd missed mine. I was about to call my host mom when Oranne (the girl in my town who's going to the US for a year) came up to me. I was so glad to see her! She was waiting for the bus, too, so I hadn't missed it yet! haha! When on the way home.
After eating lunch, I watched a little TV with Pierre and then went upstairs to my room to take a nice, longgg nap. Unfortunately, by the time I finished eating and got upstairs, it was already 2:00. It took me a while to fall asleep, and then I had music at 5:30, so I had to get up around 4:30. I only ended up with about an hour and a half of sleep. That was not nearly enough for how tired I've been lately, but it still felt good. I wish I had a day of the week I could sleep in really late. The only day I don't have school is Sunday, and at 11:00 we either go to a relative's house for lunch, have people come over, or go to the cinéma. Monday was great until I had that English class added in at 10. Whatever, I guess I will just have to hibernate during the vacation at the end of the month! haha.
When I got up from my nap, I watched a little of Pirates of the Caribbean with Pierre. Just before 5:30, Nathan's mom showed up to take me to music. There were a lot of people gone today, so our already small group was even smaller this evening. Hah. It worked out, though.
After I got home, I went with my host mom to take Pierre to dance. Then a little later, I went with her again to pick him up. We ate dinner and then I got on the computerr.
I suppose since it's the end of another month, I will update you on my progress. I kind of blew off working on the accent, but, with the exception of the R and the U, I picked up the "northern accent" pretty well, anyway. Sabrina told me that if I get the R down, I won't sound American at all anymore. My speed has gotten much, muchhh better, too. I don't speak slow anymore (unless I'm trying to put together a really complicated sentence or something,) and at times I've even been told I speak fast for a French person. I don't have to think about what I want to say in English before I say it in French every time, either. There are some phrases I say that are completely automatic, and with those it would probably take me longer to think of how I would say it in English first. Also, the whole "la bise" thing isn't awkward anymore. That kind of took me a while to get used to. It was weird kissing people I didn't even know. It has kind of grown on me, though, so I no longer feel awkward about it. The only frustrating thing is that I'm short, so instead of kissing cheeks, I often end up kissing chins. haha. That kind of sucks. I've changed a bit physically, too (unfortunately). I've been breaking out and gaining weight, and I kneww this was going to happen, but dammit I was hoping I could somehow avoid it! I really don't wanna come back a chunker! :/ When we had our little get together with the AFSers on Saturday, the weight topic came up. Everyyone has rounded out. That's a really common thing for exchange kids because of all the change and stress and everything, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept. I think I will be okay, though, as long as I don't gain a whole lot more. The other thing that's kind of bugging me are my hilights. They've grown out a lot, and while my naturaly hair color blends in decently, I can still notice it. I'm really nervous about trying to get them redone in French, though. I don't want a miscommunication, there! haha! That could be bad. I also have no idea how much it costs, and I don't want to waste a bunch of money on that.
Soo, for the month of April, I'm going to try and work on pronouns! I've started using the 'le/la/les' and 'lui' a little, but I could use some practice with those, and I really need to work on the others. I'm also going to work on learning my colloquial French expressions. My class made up a long list of ones for me to learn. haha. That will be fun. If I get to it, I'll try and work on my "R" a little, too, but if not, I'll save that for next month. I've decided that my accent really is not as important as learning the language itself. If I talk like an American well then it's because I am an American, so who cares. The accent will come after the more important stuff. Physically, I don't really know what I can do. I'm just going to hope that I don't gain anymore weight. haha.
It's getting late, though, and I really need the sleep, so I'm getting off.
à demain!
<3miranda
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