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