I Love Having Short Wednesdays

I don't love the classes I have on Wednesdays.

I started off the day with math at 9:00. I sat by Sabrina this time, and she explained the worksheet to me and I UNDERSTOOD IT! Ha! I don't really get why we had to make this number pyramid thing and then graph it, but at least I was able to do it. That made math a lot more barable! We had to do some computer thing on Excel after the worksheet, but Sabrina and I ran out of time, so I guess that will have to be done tomorrow.

Now, theatre. Two other girls on the Premiere 'L' Trac are in theatre, Wendie and Alice, so I walked to class with them and found it successfully this time! I mainly just sat and listened to the girls reherse their 5 minute scene for the first hour. There is this guy in my class who kept coming over to Wendie, Alice, and I while they were rehersing. I don't know what it is he smokes, but holy crap does it smell nasty. I almost passed out when he sat down by me and started scratching his dirty, dreadlocked hair. Yuckyuckyuckk. That really was not pleasant! Wendie and Alice did a really good job with their scene, though. The second hour was spent watching people perform and get lectured for all the things they didn't do perfectly. I'm not looking forward to having to do that. I definitely am nott perfect at anything when it comes to acting, and I'm sure my French will be terrible on top of that! Ha ha! I suppose the plus side is that I won't know what the teacher is saying to me, so she could be saying flat out to my face that I suck and I wouldn't know the difference.

At noon, class was over and I went to the front entrance where my host mom was waiting. She took me home and told me that I have music tonight at 5... I think... I don't really remember. I totally forgot about that! Ahh! I wish she would have, too! Ha ha! Oh well, I just hope I'm not the only flute player so you can't tell when I screw up. Back at the house, we had lunch and then Pierre and I watched Le Roi Soleil on DVD. I didn't understand most of it, but the music was great! I remember listening to some of the songs in French class last year :) When that finished, Pierre and my host mom left, but I don't know where to. I didn't quite catch that.

Since I haven't really done so yet, and I'm sure some of you are curious, I'm going to describe my school. The buildings are pretty old and kind of make me feel dreary. There is not a whole lot of color. The hallways by the steps are painted bright, but other than that there is a lot of white. The lights are often turned off, and when one does turn the switch on, they are on a timer for only a few minutes. The sky outside has been grey with rain lately, so that makes the light coming in through the few windows just as dull. The classrooms are bare--no posters or pictures are on the walls. They have dark green chalkboards, and sometimes the tables have colored legs, but that's about it. They don't even have clocks on the walls, and that bothers me, because I'm used to looking at the clock a lot during class.

Most of the students dress in black and grey and brown, so no color is added there, either. I'd say one in every twenty five students is not wearing a neutral color, and one in every fifty or so students has either a black or dark grey coat. A lot of students smoke, too. Outside the front entrance it almost looks like there's a fire burning with all of the cigarette smoke blowing around! I don't like having to walk through the huge crowd everyday. I hatee that smell.

I already talked about the cafeteria in pretty good detail, so I'll skip that. I also mentioned a little about the bathrooms. Although I think I forgot to mention that there is only one bathroom per floor.. and I think it's a mixed gender bathroom, because when I went in, there was a guy at the sink and a girl at the mirror and another girl talking on her phone. I'm not really sure what the deal is with that, but I found it kind of interesting.

I really like the freedom that is given to students, though. From what I've noticed so far, the teachers don't care if you take out your phone during class or if it goes off. I don't think they'd be happy if you took a call in class, but they don't take it away if you send a text message or something. Another nice thing is that the computers don't have filters. Students can access pretty much anything they want while at school. You can eat before and after class in the hallways and outside, although they don't like you to eat or chew gum in class. Water is the only acceptable beverage. You don't have a locker, so you bring your coat and backpack with you to all your classes. During class most people hang their coat over their chair and the backpack goes on the floor. Although most kids don't carry backpacks. More common you see an oversized purse, a messenger bag, or I've even seen small SUITCASES! No one in my class has a suitcase, but I've seen a few rolling around outside on my way into school. Ha ha! I found that rather hysterical. You don't really need a big bag or a locker since you only have a few classes each day.

This blog post was kind of lame, but I don't really have a whole lot to say today. If anyone has any questions for me about anything, you can post a comment and I will answer them in tomorrow's post. If you don't have a blogger account and still want to post something, you can by chosing Anonymous on the drop-down menu above the comment box, and then you can just write your name at the end of your comment (or not, but I would rather you do :D).

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. -Milton Berle