Random Information

Today I don't start until noon, so I've got a little down time. This isn't going to be very long, I don't think, because it's still early in the day and not much has happened since I wrote last night. I basically just ate dinner, watched Pride and Prejudice with my host mom, and then went up to bed.

I forgot to mention yesterday, though that I was in the paper! It wasn't an article on me, but that guy from the holocaust that came to speak at my school had an article about him in the paper, and I was in the audience. My host mom cut it out for me so I can bring it home to show everyone. ha ha.

Anyway, instead of talking about my day, I'm going to tell you some of the differences in daily life I've noticed and haven't mentioned yet.

First of all, at intersections, they are circles. When you want to turn left, you have to go right first around the circle until you get to the left turn spot. It kind of makes one dizzy at times, but it can be kind of fun, too.

Another thing I've noticed is that when a French person eats fries, they use a fork! I really can't get used to that. I like using my fingers so I can scoop up some ketchup before putting the fry in my mouth.

The French also talk in third person a lot. By that, I mean they say "on" or "one" a lot. Some examples are phrases like "On y va" and "On va manger" etc. (For you nonfrench speakers, that means, litteraly speaking, "One goes there" and "One goes to eat.")

When I watch TV, I also notice there are fewer commercials. They interrupt the show MAYBE once. I think there are usually just commercials at the end of each show. They don't come on very often.

Although when you do get a food commercial, I've noticed that at the bottom reads something like "For good health, you should get such and such amount of excercise" or "you should eat so much of a certain kind of food" then that's followed up by "visit mangerbouger.fr for more information." haha!

The digital clocks show the 24 hour time. So like, you will look at the clock at 2PM and it will say 14:00. The anologue ones, however, only go to 12 like they do in the US.

People here often wear an outfit for 2 days at a time. I don't really have a problem with that except for the fact that I don't think deoderant is overly popular here, so it kind of starts to smell...

In the house, there are no smoke detectors. I think this is mainly because there is a fireplace in the house, so if there were smoke detectors, they would go off every time we lit a fire.

As far as foods go, I have not seen peanut butter, Oreos (except in my McFlurry at McDonalds), or many flavors of pop. People ask if you want a Coke, and just a coke. I asked someone if they had Pepsi, and they had no idea what I was talking about. I've only seen Sprite and Mellow Yellow at one café. Otherwise it's justt Coke. Fanta also just comes in Orange. There is no purple or red flavor or anything like that. Just orange.

At the grocery store, you must go to the cart spot in the parking lot to get your cart. You also need a coin thing to unlock the cart, and when you return it, you get your coin back. The carts are also impossibleee to control! They don't just go forwards, but sideways and any other ways as well, so i bumped into everything! Ha ha! My host mom offered to take the cart instead, and I gladly let her.

They also don't have people that bag your groceries. You just put the groceries into your cart and walk out of the store like that. Then you load them, one-by-one, into the trunk. Sometimes, my host mom has a couple bags back there so that you don't have to take them OUT of the trunk one-by-one, too.

Ummm... I can't really think of anything else off the top of my head. I wish I could just blog things as I think of them, because SOOOO MUCH goes through my head on a daily basis it's insane! There's no way, no matter how hard I try, that I can remember to put it all on here for you! I've done a pretty good job with the main points, but holy crapp it's hard to remember everything! Especially when I'm tired! Ha ha!

Gahh, I still have an hour before THEATRE starts! I wish I could just skip that and go right into English. Even though I don't really like that class either. My teacher is soo stern! One girl asked her if she would speak slower last week, and she turns to me and goes, "Miranda, do you think I'm speaking fast?" I really didn't know what to say to that, so I just looked at her. She followed that up with, "We don't sit there and ar-tic-u-late everything we say, do we?" I just said, "I suppose you could if you wanted to..." She also says "SHHHHHH!" every couple minutes or so. It's really annoying. The class does talk, granted, but not that badly. She could easily ignore it if she wanted to.

I'll see if I can write again later, but I don't really feel that well today, so I might just go to bed early and update you tomorrow with today's activities. Does anyone know what to do when you aren't feeling well at school and need to come home early? Do you just call for a ride and leave? I know this isn't going to help me today, but for future reference, if you could let me know that' de great... if any of you DO know, lol.

I'm getting off-
Au Revoir!
-Miranda

PS RICA: That aromatherapy stuff really does (so far) work for what we had hoped it would work for! hahahaha!

EDIT: I'm feeling better and home for the day, so I figured I'd update this now. Otherwise tomorrow, you'd have to read two days worth of information since I've got school right away in the morning, and that would get really long.

I got to school and had to wait to get into the building for a while. I figured out that the doors are only open at certain times, (on the hour, I think). A lady (the one that yelled at me) opens the door and students can enter. If someone needs to get in at another time, they have to buzz you in. Only adults can do this. I don't know why it's set up this way, and find it rather stupid, but whatever. I'm glad to have figured it out.

Theatre was alright I suppose. The teacher talked majority of the time, and this time there were no performances, so she noticed me and asked if I was really supposed to be in theater. Then she asked what I was planning on doing if I couldn't act out a French script. I really didn't know what to say to that, so Wendie stepped in for me and told the teacher something. She then decided on letting me sit around today, and on Wednesday, she would have an easy script for me. Joyy. I hope it is SUPER easy. I mean I don't really mind memorizing some French lines, but comprehending the scene and knowing how to ACT the part is going to be quite a challenge. Especially since I suck at that to begin with.

I had an hour and a half break, since English at one thirty is only on A Weeks, and it's a B Week this week. I went out walking around in town with Wendie, Joy, Alicia, Alexandre, and another girl I don't know the name of. After walking around for a while and going through a few stores, we returned to the school and went into the foseball room. I played a few games of foseball with Jeremy, Jeremy, and Rafael, and then we had to go to Physical Science.

This was the last class I was the "new american girl" in. The teacher was kind of scary. I sat down, I guess before I was supposed to, and he came by and told me to stand up! He said a few things and then told everyone they could sit. We had to do some experiment thing, I don't know what the purpose of it was, but whatever. Sabrina was sitting next to me, so she did most of the work. During the lesson, she also tried to teach me how to correctly pernounce the French 'R.' I was having a lot of trouble getting it correct, but eventually managed to say the words "Marron" "Miranda" "Sabrina" "Vert" and a few others correctly! I reallyyy want to break my 'American accent.' I dislike it, although a lot of people here tell me they like how it sounds. I was getting pretty decent at my French by the end of the period, but unfortunately then I had English.

I've found it to be rather difficult to transition back and forth between French and English. It kind of sets me back, because I start to make progress in French and then I have to go and switch back to English again. Today I really did like that class, though! We talked about a few boring subjects, but then read an article about how some researchers did an experiement and found that boys are falling behind at school, but are ahead in everything else. It said that since boys were leading in the Internet age and like to take risks, innovate and experiment, it was the school's fault, not the boys'. It also said that after school, boys tend to be more successful than girls in the workforce. My teacher went on to talk about how this implies that guys are typically more brave and girls are more cowardly. I had a lottt to say about that! I talked for a good minute or so, rather quickly (oops) about how I thought it wasn't a gender thing, but rather varied from person to person. Some boys are cowardly while others are brave and the same goes for girls. Then I said that society expects boys to be braver and more assertive, so therefore they are able to pull ahead in the workforce much more easily than girls who are doing the same amount of work. The workforce is simply sexist. I guess I talked a little too fast, and so my teacher made me stand up, face the class, and repeat what I said, slower and more articulate. I still felt kind of bad, because no one understood what I was saying except for my teacher, but I had a strong opinion on that! I couldn't pass up participation in that class discussion. It really irritated meeee!

I also got homework in English. It's my first homework assignment so far! I was expecting to come home with a bag full each night, but so far, so good! I've had less homework here than I did in First Grade! Anyway, my teacher asked me if I would speak for about 2 minutes or so on women's right to vote in America. I have no idea what that really means, but I'll just BS something. I'm not graded on it or anything, she just wants me to talk about it on Friday for some reason. Sooo right now I'm (or am supposed to be) Googling women's rights and all that stuff. Fun stuff, let me tell ya!

My French teacher wasn't there today, so school ended at 5 instead of 6. My host mom brought me home and I ate a couple chocolate chip cookies, bread, and hot chocolate with Pierre. My host mom had to leave for another meeting, so now Pierre and I are just chillin' at home. He made me make him a hot chocolate (for like the millionth time) and I made HIM promise to make ME a hot chocolate tommorrow. I'm kind of getting sick of his laziness. Everytime, lately, when we are sitting in the living room watching TV and he needs something from the kitchen, I have to be the one to get it. I'm not going to be able to put up with this a whole lot longer. I mean once and a while, sure, or if I'm getting something for myself and he wants something too, I'll get it, but I told him I was going to do my homework and he told me first I needed to make him hot chocolate and bring it to him in the living room. Gahhh! Oh well, tommorrow he's the chef.

I really should probably work on this homework a little. I will écriver more tomorrow!
-Miranda

Be daring, be different, be impractical. Be anything that will assert imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the common-place, the slaves of the ordinary. -Sir Cecil Beaton