43 Days

Sorry I didn't get to writing yesterday, but I've got a good chunk of time now, so I'll catch you up.

I had two hours of class right away in the morning. The first one was Latin and the second was French. I doodled my way through Latin, and didn't do a whole lot in French, either. After those two classes were over, I was on break until 4:00 since my English teacher was gone.

Sabrina and I went into town from 10 to 1. We walked around and went into a couple stores. I bought a hardcover notebook for my "yearbook" that I plan on having everyone write in, and then I bought Pierre's birthday present. I also found a Twilight audio book!!!! I plan on listening to that while following along with my French version of the book! Yay! That will be a fun thing for the plane ride home :)!

We got hungry, so we found a boulangerie and each were planning on getting a "petit pain au chocolat" (aka a chocolate filled croissant). The particular boulangerie we stopped in had a special; 3 petits pains for 2€. Sabrina and I were both really hungry, so we got 6-- three for each of us! lol! We went to the Beffoi (a cathedral looking building that isn't actually a church or cathedral.. I don't really know what it is, but I do not believe it is a religious building at all) and ate our bag full of chocolate croissants inside on the bench. While there are tables all over the sidewalk in town, you can only sit on them if you are eating at the restaurant they are in front of. Otherwise, the workers get really irritated. So anyway, after that, we found Camille. She was looking for capris, so we went along with her to a few stores, but didn't find anything she liked, so an hour later, we went back to school. Sabrina and I found Marion, Virginie, and Laureen waiting for us by the cantine. Neither of us were very hungry, but we went through the line and got a little to munch on anyway.

After lunch, Marion, Sabrina, and I went to the CDI. We talked with each other and a little with Florent as well. At 3:00, we met back up with Virginie and Laureen, and went to the park by Lycée Robespierre. We passed our last hour of freetime there, laying in the grass and relaxing in the shade. It was really hot out yesterday, so the shade felt great.

At 4, we had Parcours. This was our laaaaast day of Parcours for the year! Wooh! That means I am now done with my science classes, parcours, and DS! Theatre is done Wednesday of next week. I'ma have so much free time :D! Anyway, we spent the two hours of parcours watching a theatrical piece on video. It was something by Ionosco and it made fun of Americans a little. lol. I thought the piece itself was kind of lame, although I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone with that opinion. After watching some of that, we watched a video with the crew talking about stage setup and effects and all that. I pretty much slept through that, too, along with the rest of the class. lol. At the end, we watched a few of La Fountain's fables. Those I actually find entertaining, so that wasn't so bad.

I got home from school around 6:30, and Thomas, the kids, and Pierre from Perpignan (my host mom's ex husband) were there! He had just gotten into town and had stopped by with Thomas (who he is staying with) to say hello. They didn't stay long, and after they left, I helped Pierre with his birthday party again. Then I we ate, and after supper, I went online and looked up Senior picture information. Then I went to bed!

This morning, I got up and came to school, even though we don't have DS anymore. Sabrina and Camille have Itallian from 10-12, so from 8-10, they hang out at school. I decided to come and hang out with them. lol. I'm also going to try and book an appointment for my Sr. photos. Then at noon, I'm taking the bus home and probably will be really busy helping Pierre since his party with his friends is this afternoon. That said, I dunno if I'll be able to write again today or tomorrow (since that's the actual day and it's going to be with the whole family), so hang in there until Monday :)!

à+
<3Miranda

Word of the Day: être aveugle = to be blind


***and this was posted Saturday morning, not Friday night...

45 Days

Today was another bad day. I am tired and didn't feel well all day, and that made me really crabby and then homesick, too. I'm so worn out. I really want to miss tomorrow since I've only got an hour of Latin and then French right away in the morning, and in the afternoon I have 2 hours of Parcours (which is the longest class you could ever sit through) at the end of the day. It would be the perfect day to miss, but I already missed Monday and Tuesday, and we don't have anymore DS, so no school on Saturdays. We also have Monday off next week, so I really don't want to miss tomorrow if I don't absolutely have to. And besides, I need to buy Pierre a birthday present since his birthday is on Sunday. I was going to do that today, but no one wanted to go into town with me and I didn't feel like going alone.

I don't remember my day very well since I let it go by in a haze, but I'll try and recall as much as I can for you guys. It started out at 8 with histoire. We talked about Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin and watched a video. The video was actually an English one, but it was dubbed in French, which was insanely annoying when someone would be talking in English and the French person would talk over the top of them. It's really hard because I try to listen to both languages at the same time, and then neither one of them makes sense. lol. I kind of tuned out the video and instead copied Sabrina's math homework. I figured since I had the time and she offered it, I might as well do it. haha. I'm going to have TERRIBLE study habbits next year if this attitude follows me home!

French was next. We talked about nothing of intrest (a couple different extracts from who knows what books). I copied Sabrina's notes at a comfortable pace. It was honestly just something to keep my occupied, because it's not like I'm going to be doing anything with them anymore; there are no more DSs and I can't take the real Bac, so whatever I do is just for me. That hasn't worked very well as a motivator lately. I just do things in class to keep myself busy, and if I don't finish, I don't stress over it. We did get our DSs back from a couple weeks ago today! And guess what! I FINALLY got a grade! I had to write a little message on top asking for one, but I did!! And it made me super happy. I got a 10, which I guess is more than a lot of the other people I talked to. :D!

After French was math. We handed in our DMs and then talked about reflections and translations and all that stuff. He handed out some pictures of examples and that's all we really did.

The last class before lunch was Anglais Complementaire. We started out class with him asking me why I was gone Monday. When I told him I had a 'bronchite,' he replied "Bronchitee?!! That isn't English, is it?!" I said it wasn't, but I couldn't remember if the translation was "walking pnemonia" or "bronchitis." He started babbling about them, but nothing he said really made sense, so I rephrased what I said into a question. He didn't seem to understand, and instead just nodded and said "Yes, so that is no fun." Then with lots of expression and leaning forward in his desk, he goes "I hope you don't die!" The way he said that absolutely stunned me. What a jerrk. Here I am in a foreign country without a single member of my natural family and he talks about this resperatory infection possibly killing me! I dunno how many of you remember, but that was one of those top fears I had when I left; getting seriously sick and/or dying away from home. Now, I know that he was joking and that "bronchite" (whether it happens to be walking pnemonia or bronchitis) is NOT going to kill me, but seriously! UGH! I was so stunned my mouth literally fell open and I just stared at him with one of those "I can't believe you just said that!" faces. That really irritated me. Anyway, after he assured me that he is able to joke, we moved on. We spent the hour listening to an interview in English and filling in the missing words on a worksheet.

Finally it was lunch time. Unfortunately, I overate and got a terrible stomach ache that stuck with me for the rest of the day.

After eating, Virginie, Sabrina, and I went to the CDI. I was hoping to go buy Pierre's birthday present during this time, but neither of the girls would go into town with me, so I sat in the CDI. We didn't even do anything interesting. I spent an hour with Virginie listening to music on my ipod as she wrote down songs/artists that she liked. Then my other hour of free time was spent with Claire(from Latin) at the computer. She's working on a story that she wants to publish eventually. It's already got 22 chapters and seventy-some pages! I tried going on the Internet, but the server was down and I couldn't connect. Claire and I ended up just talking the rest of the time.

I had 2 more hours of French from 4-6. We got our anthologies back, and I was really, really disappointed when I didn't have a note. I spent a freaking weekend+ on that thing, and all she did was write "You were really good to do this project" or something like that. I swear, trying to get notes (grades) on my stuff for History/Geography and French is like trying to get a rock to bleed. I learned I have to write "Donnez-moi un note svp" on top of all the stuff I want grades on. I figured by now it would just be expected and I would be treated like an actual French student, but NOPE! Unfortunately, I learned the trick too late, and there are only, like, two weeks left of school :/

By the time school ended, I was really not feeling well and that put me in a terrible mood. The one day I can't wait until the bus arrives, it comes late. Then I get home and take my meds. I'm allll done with one of them! Unfortunately, the one I finished is the one I don't mind taking. The nasty amoxicilline pills take me up until Saturday morning. Thankfully that isn't too much further away, though! Anyway, afterwards, I was going to go on the computer, but Pierre got really crabby and insisted we work on his birthday party some more. Dude, we've been working on it almost constantly since February, and I cannot WAIT until it is finally over with on Saturday/Sunday! I originally explained to him that I was really tired and wanted to check my emails first, but he started talking to himself in the other room, and he was really upset. That did not help my mood, but I went and played his little game anyway. He could tell I wasn't very happy, then, and after a while, he let me free. lol.

Now it's time to eat, so I'm gonna go.
And Desperate Housewives is on, and I don't want to commit a crime and miss an episode! lol!

à demain
<3Miranda

Word of the Day: un morse = a walrus.

46 Days

I'm feeling better today. And because I'm feeling better physically, my morale is up, too. I'm not quite as homesick as I was the other day. So that's good! At least we're moving in the right direction :)!

Yesterday, I stayed home from school again. This time, I was in my own room at home alone, so I didn't have people talking to me and babying me all day long. It was really nice and I felt really good by the time Pierre and my host mom got home. I read through some of my AFS info that I got in like November or December, and found a thing on culture shock. Dude, I honestly was able to check off nearly every box. ha. The good news is that there are things in there for ways to get through the whole thing faster, so I'm hoping it won't last very long. Like I said, I'm already feeling a lot better today. I read the first half of my first month in my journal, too, and holy crap did I do a good job! I have almost every minute and every thought recorded! I knowww it's gotten worse. I kind of wish I would have kept it consistant and stayed that awesome of a journalist. I still think I do a decent job, but after reading that, it was very obvious that I've been slacking off and have been writing with a lot less detail. I apologize, but it's honestly hard to remember everything that happens and every thought that goes through my head during the day. Especially because they are not necessarily new and exciting anymore. A lot of things happen every single day, and I don't really write about them anymore, because that would get boring to read. So I suppose that's one of the main reasons my journal entries have been getting less detailed.

After spending some more time listening to music and laying around, I got up and got myself ready for the evening. There was a "neighbors party" for everyone in Roclincourt to get to know people better. I guess a lot of people have recently moved into town, so this worked out well. At first, I was kind of a downer and I really hardly talked to anyone. I just watched Simon, Vincent, Jeremy, and some other kid play fooseball. Then I went to sit down and eat with Annick (not my aunt, but the one who works with my host mom) and talked with her, her husband, and a few other people. After that, my host mom brought me over to another table and introduced me to the old mayor and his wife. They had me do a little presentation on Fargo and compare some things to France. That went pretty well, and I had a few easedroppers. They were girls a little older than me, and we ended up talking for the rest of the night. They invited me to a discotheque Saturday night, which honestly, I don't think is really my thing, but since I haven't been to an actual discotheque yet, I figured I'd go along just to see what it's like. I'll let you know how that goes. lol.

Today, I went to school. I had a helluva time getting my ass out of bed, but I made it to school on time just the same. I had math first, and we went over some problems and practiced some crap. We have homework due tomorrow, but I'm really not in the mood, so I'm not going to do it tonight. lol. It's not like it really matters. I have a decent grade in that class, actually. It's above the average by a few points. (Here, the grading scale is a lot different, and I don't feel like explaining it, but my grade in math is pretty decent. I think I have a 12 or a 13, for those of you who understand it.) And since I am not getting any credit for this math, I honestly have no motivation to go spend a few hours on homework. I'm sorry. lol.

After math, I had theatre. We just talked and then Wendie, Alice, and I went to the CDI so they could find a book. I went on the computer a while and then went back to the theatre with them around 11:40. I talked with Mathilde and Jane for the rest of the period. Mathilde is going to the US for the year next school year, so we talked a while about that.

When I got home from school, I cleaned my room. Ohh man did it need cleaning, too! There was crap all over the place. I spent all afternoon on that. I threw everything I no longer need into a corner, and am going to be sending that home sometime within the next month.

Pierre wanted to go over to Arlette's, so we spent from 3-4 at her house playing playmobile and talking. haha. She showed us her baby chicks, too, which were really cute :)! There are 2 light colored ones and 5 grey and black ones. When it was time for her to go pick up Vincent, Pierre and I headed home.

I had music class at 5:30 or so. That was alright. My air support really sucked thanks to the bronchite, and so that made playing a little difficult, but whatever. I made it without passing out! lol.

After I was dropped off, I went back and cleaned my room some more. Then I got sick of that and came downstairs for some computer time. My host mom has a meeting tonight, so she made crêpes for supper before leaving.

I think I caught you guys up. I feel like I've been doing a really bad job lately, so sorry about that. I'll try and get back into the swing of blog writing now and keep you updated daily.

à demain
<3miranda

Expression of the Day: Je parle anglais comme une vache espanol. = literally- I speak English like a Spanish cow. aka: I suck at English.

48 Days

...is way too long.
I decided to write again today because i have nothing else to do. I didn't go to school. When I woke up this morning, my head was throbbing because I was still SO tired. After trying to get up a few times and having my head spin around in circles, I gave up. Annick was supposed to be giving me a ride to school, so I called her and told her I didn't want to go because I didn't feel well. She insisted on taking me to her friend who is a doctor, so she came to get me anyway. I threw on some clothes quick and when she arrived, we drove into St. Laurent.

The doctor's waiting room was kind of small. There were chairs around the outside perimeter filled with people waiting to be seen. The walls had a few health related posters hanging on them. In the middle, there was a table with magazines, but there were no toys for little kids or anything. There were three doctors who shared this building, and they didn't have receptionists or nurses. The doctor comes out to get the patients him/herself, and then brings them back. We didn't wait too long, and when we were called back, we sat in front of a big, expensive looking desk and talked to the doctor a little. Then he took me back into another room that resembled what you'd find at the clinic in the US. He checked me over and asked me questions, and decided that I have "bronchite." That is either walking pnemonia or bronchitis, i don't remember the translation exactly. He also said I had a "spasm" in the middle of my chest, and that's why it hurt so badly. He said that could either be related to the bronchite or alergies. Normally I don't have allergies, but since the air is filled with some types of pollens (or whatever) that I'm not used to back home, it could still be possible. Also, the weird thing is that I don't have much of a cough. I've had both walking pnemonia and bronchitis plenty of times before, and I've always had a hacking cough with it. The doctor ordered some labwork, too, so I had to go get my blood taken! :(! I'm sure most of you know how bad I am with that. lol. He gave me a patch to put on beforehand that would numb my arm, though, so that helped a bit.

I spent the rest of the day laying on Annick's couch doing nothing at all. I honestly didn't even sleep that much. Annick came over and talked to me constantly and asked me if I was feeling better, needed anything, etc. It really kind of annoyed me. At home, I ususally just get left alone and if I need anything, I yell for it. Annick kept asking me about missing home and stuff, too, and that is seriously the lasttt thing I want to talk about. It's an acheivement when I can keep myself from thinking about it for more than 15 minutes, and the way she kept bringing it up actually made me start crying. I was so embarrassed. I can't do this anymore, you guys! I'm sick and I want to be at MY home on MY couch with MY mom bringing in my medicine when it's time to take it! Speaking of which, I have to take 2 tablets dissolved in water for my fever three times a day for three days AND a crushed amoxociline pill dissolved in water three times a day for 5 days. And I'm sure you can imagine how delicious that all tastes. Ugh. I hate being sick. I hate being homesick. I hateee this! I can't go to school tomorrow, either, so I'll probably get back on here. I have nothing else to do. I will probably be at my house in Roclincourt, though, because Annick has to work tomorrow. I'll keep you updated.
But like I said yesterday, I don't want people worrying about me back at home. First of all, worrying about me 6000 some KM away is going to do absolutely nothing for me here; it's only going to effect you. Secondly, I've got medicine and I'm going to be fine in a few days; there is no reason to worry. I'm just going to be really pissy until then because I decided I really hate being sick and away from home at the same time.

We haven't heard the results from my blood samples, yet, but are supposed to find out later tonight. I will let you know if anything else shows up.

à plus.
<3Miranda

Words of the Day: un medcin = a doctor; le medicamo = the medicine.

49 Days

Ok, I'm really homesick. I am not in the mood to write at all. I'm honestly not in the mood to do anything but freaking sulk around in my room. I haven't let myself do that yet, but damnnn i will have to give in soon. Thankfully, last night I spent the night at Hillary's host family's house in Diéval. We talked from 8 until 1 in the morning, and that helped a lot. Now that I'm back in Roclincourt, though, I can't keep my mind off of home. It is absolutely terrible. Saturday, I followed my host mom around on her errands like a zombie. She called Hillary's family later in the afternoon and they set up the sleepover for us. Unfortunately, Hillary has to leave next Tuesday to take her SAT. She didn't get in to the session in Paris, so she has to go home early so she can take that. So we won't get to have another American night.

Today I slept in til 11, then we got up and took a walk around town. She lives in a town of about 200 people, so it's basically in the country. They have 3 dogs(and puppies on the way), 3 cats, 2 chickens, and 8 horses. After lunch, we called Raenetta and she came over. We hung out in Hillary's room and talked some more, and then went on another short walk before I left this evening. Oh, and btw, I ate pig stomach for supper the other night.. and it was actually not bad. I didn't know what it was before I ate it, thankfully, because I probably would have puked. lol.

I never did go to the doctor, and I don't plan on going tomorrow after school. I told my host mom to cancel the appointment. I feel a lot better, and the fatigue and muscle aches are just because I'm really stressed out right now. Hillary said she had the same symptoms right before she got homesick, too, so I don't think I need to see a doctor. I may need to take a day off from school, though, just because I am REALLY tired and sore. Every muscle in my body has just given out- my neck, back, and shoulders especialy. Nobody has any reason to worry about me, though. This is normal, so don't send me a million emails or lose sleep over me not feeling up to par. Normally, this lasts about 2 weeks, so I should be better before long.

I dunno if I'm going to be writing again for sure tomorrow or not, because I seriously have no motivation whatsoever. Nothing happened to me, I'm just being lazy if I don't write again for a while. I'll talk to y'all again soon, though. If you want to talk, don't hesitate to send me an email. I'll probably get to that before another blog entry.

à+
<3Miranda

Phrase of the Day: J'en ai marre! = I'm fed up!

50 Days

Fifty days to go. Ugh. I've gotten to the point where I am actually looking forward to the return. I'm not saying I don't like it here, but I'm really ready to leave. I've learned enough French for my satisfaction, and I've successfully integrated myself in the French culture. Now I'm ready to be done. I miss my old family and my old friends and my old school and my old house and my old food and my old life. These next 50 days are not going to go by fast enough. :/

Anyways, I apologize for my idiocity yesterday. I'm not going to rewrite everything, but I'll give you a short summary.
Thursday, I didn't have school because of Ascension. After I got up, Annick and I went to pick up Grandma on the way to a pizzaria in the Grand Place. There, we waited for my host mom and Pierre to arrive. Annick was friends with the workers there, so they were as much apart of our conversations as we were. I ate spaghetti with penne noodles, and that really made me miss Valentino's. haha. The sauce was really similar to the stuff they have, and I haven't eaten that for so long! For dessert, I had crème brulée and peacan ice cream. That was quite delicious as well. At 4 that evening, my host mom, Pierre, and I went to the Casino d'Arras for Pierre's dance performance. That went from 5 til 8, so it was kind of long, but it was really good. We had the French version of McDonalds, aka Quick, for supper.

Yesterday, thanks to the Oral Blanc, I only had 2 hours of actual class. They were both English LV1, too, so it really was a good day! lol! My teacher has also started getting my name right; she no longer calls me Melinda. The first class started at 11. About a third of the class didn't show up (since we had almost no school), so all we did was finish up the worksheet we started Monday. After that, we played a little game. I'm too lazy to go into details on that, sorry.

For the first hour of break, Sabrina and I just went to the CDI and talked. At one, we met up with the others and had lunch. Then Marion, Sabrina, and I went back to the CDI. I went on the computer while the others studied. From 3-4, Sabrina and I had our second English class. We did another short worksheet and then played Pictionary.

From 4-6, Sabrina and I went out into town. We bought a big bottle of Orangina Indien (orangina with grenodine) and shared that. Then we went to Promod and I bought 2 tank tops. :)! We browsed through Pimkie and a toy store, too, but didn't find anything else. We spent a while sitting on the bench in front of the Theatre d'Arras, and then started walking back towards the school. I bought an eyelash curler along the way. lol. It was thee hardest thing ever to find one of those! And the one I did find was the last one in stock! Back at school, we talked as I waited for the bus.

Last night, I went over to Vincent and Simon's house for a Wii night. That's going to have to wait, though, because I've gotta go.
Sorry I keep doing this to you!!!

51 Days

I apologize for my laziness the past couple days. I have not been in the blogging mood and even now, I'm forcing myself to write something for you guys.
Wednesday, I spent from 9AM to 9:45PM at the Theatre d'Arras. We had rehearsal all day and from 7:30 to 9:30 was the show. I didn't perform my piece, but I did participate in the Finale at the end with everyone. That went a little different than planned, but I don't feel like trying to explain it all, so we'll have to talk about that when I get home. The day was long, but I ended up getting to know a lot of people in my class much better. Before the show, I got my relaxing aromatherapy stuff out and I am pretty sure that everyone in my class took it. lol. It was kind of funny since everyone was sitting around backstage sniffing their wrists like drug addicts. haha. Afterwards, Annick picked me up and I went to her house for the night. She said she has unlimited international calling, so she insisted I call home. I did, but no one answered, so I just called my mom on her cell phone. We talked for a while and then Annick tried talking to her.. haha. She said she was going to try and talk in English, but instead she just talked really slow in French, hoping my mom would understand. Lol! My mom knows, like, Bonjour, at the most, so I don't think Annick was very successful. haha.

Thursday is going to have to wait, because I've gotta get to class. I'll finish up when I get home, maybe. I'm going to the doctor tonight, so I dunno if I'll have time.. If not, you'll get an update tomorrow.

à bientôt!
<3Miranda

UGH!!! I am so dumb!
I just spent an hour typing the rest of this out, but the computer was slow and I restarted it before pasting my post in a Word document, and lost everything. SORRY! I don't have time now because I'm going over to Simon's for a Wii party. :)!
I'll try and redo it tomorrow.
Bye.
<3Miranda

Word of the Day: un bouchon = a traffic jam

54 Days

Well, this morning, I did something I haven't done in a long time; I fell back to sleep after my alarm went off. Last night, I reviewed my French until midnight, so I didn't get to sleep very early. I managed to get myself ready pretty quickly, though, and caught the bus.

I didn't have Latin today, since my Latin teacher is also a French teacher and therefore had orals to listen to. Instead, I spent that time in the CDI with Sabrina, Virginie, and Camille, and we reviewed for the oral.

Today was the only day this week we had French class. The first hour was from 9-10. Since over half of the people in our class went yesterday, we didn't spend any time reviewing. All we did was take notes on the last excerpt of Manon Lescaut. I really wasn't very concentrated, though, because I was anxious about the oral. I didn't get all the notes finished, but whatever.

After French, we had histoire. I tried taking notes as best I could in there, but again I was preoccupied with the oral. After the first hour of class, during the break, I left to go take my oral examination. The teacher came out to get me and put me at one of the three desks against the far wall. There were other people in there at the same time. All the people working on the written part were facing the wall. The teachers had two desks together, face to face. My teacher asked me which text I wanted to do (normally, the students don't get the choice). When I told her The Misanthrope, she actually laughed a little. She was shocked that I picked that because it's relatively hard to understand. I had my notes for that memorized almost word for word, though, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard. She had me take out a piece of paper and my text, and then I got 30 minutes to work. I wrote everything down that I could remember, which was quite a bit. I even remembered lots of the important lines from the text, so I went through and underlined and highlighted the stuff that corresponded to what I was talking about. I did forget a couple things, but nothing too major. It took me just under a half hour to finish. I reread through what I wrote down and then studied the text itself a bit. To be honest, I really don't understand the text as well as it sounds like I do on paper. I just remember what lines correspond with what notes and the things that were written down on paper. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that I knew what I was saying, but I never would have gotten that out of the text by myself.

My teacher allowed me a little more than 30 minutes, even though I didn't really need the time. Then she called me over to the desk facing her and we started the oral portion. First, I read the scene. Well, I started to read the scene, but my pernounciation was bad, so she stopped me and we read through the first few lines together. She would read a phrase and then I would repeat it, focusing on my accent.

After that, we got to presenting my written notes. I started out by presenting the scene and it was written by Molière in 1666, and then went on to derive the word 'misanthrope' (mis= negative prefix, anthrope comes from the Greek word, anthropus, which means 'man' and therefore misanthrope = someone who doesn't like man). After that, I gave a little background information on the play (since this was a scene in the middle someplace). Then I went on to talk about what happens and the quotes and litterary stuff and everything I wrote down. It honestly went pretty good, I thought. She didn't write a thing the whole time I was presenting, so I don't know if she graded me or not, but I really hope so. When I finished presenting my notes, she said I did a good job. She commented that I have a really decent accent when I read slowly, but as I get faster, the accent gets worse and worse. Fortunately, she understood "every word I said" while I was talking, so that was good. Then we started talking about school and France and me. She asked me when I was leaving, and then asked me if I thought 6 months was too long, and I think she actually expected me to say 'yes' to that. She never asked me to take out my complementary texts for questioning, so I brought up the subject myself. Normally, the students are questioned on these texts that go along with the main texts in a sequence. She asked me if I could explain one of the texts to her, and I basically regurgitated what Sabrina explained to me earlier. It was a fable, so consequently there was a moral. She asked me what I thought it was, and I replied with a kind of lame answer, but it worked. After that, she asked me if I wanted to go through the other 2, but I didn't understand those two very well, so she explained one of them to me, and then our time was up. I thanked her for listening to me, said goodbye, and then left.

My history class had ended at the same time, and it was just down the hall, so I ran into everyone. After answering to a million people that my oral went well, I found Sabrina. We went to the CDI with Camille and helped her study for her oral in one of the study rooms in the back. She'd forgotten her binder with all her texts, so I gave her mine. It's not like it makes any difference since none of the texts have any writing on them or anything.

At 1, we left to go eat lunch. Sabrina and I found Marion, Virginie, and Laureen, and then went to the cantine and ate.

Around 2, Sabrina and I went back to the CDI and looked up senior photos online. I really want to get mine done here, but I honestly have no idea how it all works. And since they don't do yearbooks or senior photos in France, no one here is able to help me. We found some stuff online and I successfully explained to Sabrina what a senior photo is. Afterwards, I checked my email and surfed around online a little until we could leave the building at 3.

Marion, Sabrina, Narine (Sab's friend), and I left school on the hour. We went to the France 3 (a TV station) studio so Narine could pick up her internship form for the summer. Then we went to a photographer's place and asked them if they could do my senior photo. Thankfully Sabrina understood what it was, so she could explain to the lady, because she had noo idea what I was talking about. After she somewhat understood, she asked me where I wanted it done, and I told her the specific park. She said that they couldn't do it there because it was too small and didn't work or something like that. Ugh. That really disappointed me! There is this park about a 10 minute walk from school that is absolutely gorgeousss! I went there one afternoon with Sabrina when we didn't have class.. I wrote about it, but I don't know if you guys remember. There's a pond in the middle, and lots of big trees and willow trees and hills and ducks and a little duck house in the middle of the pond and in the background are some old buildings and AH! It's like, theeee perfect location! The lady said there was another park in town (half hour on foot from school) that has water and it's really pretty. She said they do a lot of wedding photos there, so I should check it out and maybe think about that. I'm hoping to go on Friday during the 3 hours in the afternoon when we don't have class. Sabrina doesn't know if she's allowed to go that far from school, and has never actually been there before, so she's not so excited about the idea. She said we will see, though.

We walked around town for a while, killing time. We ran into Pierre-Antoine, so we talked with him for a little while, and then returned to school at 4 for French. All we really did was finish up Manon Lescaut (finally!). At the end, she told us that the lowest oral grade was a 5/20, and the highest was a 19/20 (which is an AMAZING grade!). She didn't have all of our grades, since Camille hadn't gone yet (her teacher wasn't there when she went to take it, so she's going tomorrow), so we have to wait until Monday.

After school, Sabrina and I went to the CDI and found Virginie. We talked with her a little, and then I went on Google Maps and found directions to the park. I printed those off and a map, so if we do go, I doubt we'll get terribly lost. Arras isn't THAT big of a city; it's smaller than Fargo!

At 6, we left the building and talked for a little bit as I waited for my bus. When it arrived, I got on and came home. My host mom is now at the Mairie and Pierre is at dance until 8, so I've got the house to myself for the time being. (Actually, I think I misheard her.. it's 8:04 right now... she might have said nine. lol. I don't remember.) Either way, you're caught up on my day, so I'm gonna get off of blogger.
I'll write again tomorrow! ...or actually, I dunno, because I have theatre from 9AM to 9:30PM, so I'm not sure if I'll have the energy to write, but perhaps!

bisous!
<3Miranda

Phrase of the day: Je m'en fous = I don't care.

55 Days

Today I was really tired. I didn't feel too well today, and when I got to school, Sabrina made me go to the nurse. She didn't do anything for me except tell me to see a doctor, so that wasn't much help. She wanted me to leave school, but I didn't want to, so I told her I would come back if I got worse, and I never did. :P

We were a little late for Anglais Complementaire, but who really cares? My teacher was a little crabby about it and almost made us go back to the nurse to get a pass to come into class, but Sabrina explained that we left just before the final bell rang, so we were off the hook. We didn't do shit in that class. We started out with a little quiz, in which I totally bombed since I didn't study at all & I had no idea how to translate a lot of these terms into French. Then he went over the corrections for that comic from last week, and that was it. I got a 13/20 on that, by the way. I dunno how that worked, but whatever. Sabrina was reviewing for her oral, which was later on in the day, and he got really mad. He came over and asked if she was working on her French, and she said yes. Then he took her paper and gave her a ZERO! He said that the oral is not meant to take up his class time. Then he finished going over the questions and talked about how that comic really was saying that nature no longer exists and that people are distorted and no longer see anything except through a TV screen. Now honestly, how many of you could figure all that out from that comic? (I posted it a few days before if you scroll down). And for those of you who could, would you be able to do it in a foreign language?! This guy is insane.

After Anglais Comp., I went to the CDI and worked on some things for my oral, then I surfed the Internet until theatre at noon. The theatre itself was actually being cleaned, so we weren't able to have class in there. The teacher had us all go into the Post-Bac room in the back of the CDI. We just talked. I didn't get to perform my piece at all and consequently told my teacher that I do not feel ready to perform it in front of a crowd on Wednesday. She let me off the hook without any arguement, but still wants me to go with on Wednesday from 9AM-10PM to help with the set and all that. Neither Wendie nor Alice are going to be there, so I'm hoping I don't get too bored. I don't know a whole lot of other people in my class very well.

It was finally lunch time at 1. Sabrina and I only had a half hour before Anglais LV1, so we quickly ate with Marion and Laureen. Virginie had already eaten and was taking her oral, so she wasn't with us. I still didn't feel very well, so I didn't eat my dessert! It was really good apple pie, too, but after eating my yogurt, I felt really icky and couldn't bring myself to take more than a bite of the pie.

In English, we got our DS back from last week. I got an 18.5/20 because I made a tonn of spelling errors. haha. It's kind of surprising how much I've regressed with my English. The better I get at French, the worse I get at English. We went over the corrections for that, and then started a worksheet before class finished.

It's an A week, so I had SVT next. Sabrina was taking her oral at this time, so I sat by Wendie. We just continued talking about the male reproductive system. I really don't have anything else to say about that. It was a longgg hour and a half.

Afterwards, we had another hour of Anglais, LV1. We went over some more "Dirty Words" and got a thing called "Why is a beer better than a MAN" to even out the playing field. lol. It wasn't quite as good as the other one, though. This one wasn't quite as mean and the puns weren't quite as clever. After we finished going over that, we worked on that worksheet up until the end of class.

There wasn't French at the end of the day because of the orals. All the French teachers have to assess the students, so Mme Dejagheare was busy with that. Sabrina and I went to the CDI and she helped me review for the oral. We went over most of the main texts I have and she explained them to me. My notes that I took toward the beginning are terrible, so she gave me hers and some things on the authors to help me study tonight.

After school, I came home and ate a snack. I'm planning on spending the rest of the night reviewing, because I've got a LOT to memorize!
I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!

bisous!
<3miranda

Word of the Day: l'infirmière = the nurse

56 Days

Today, a little after 11:30, we left for my host mom's brother, Jean-Paul's, house in St. Omer. It was about a 45 minute drive. When we got there, I met him and his wife (forgot her name), and then another lady (I'm assuming this is his wife's sister) and her 20 year old daughter, Anne, arrived from Calais. We all ate lunch together and talked and then looked at pictures of the States. Jean-Paul and his wife have a son and daughter in law who live in Miami with their kids. They come to France often and will actually be flying in on Thursday, so my host mom said we're going to try and see them. After that, went on a walk around town. We passed the cathedral and went through the city park and it was really pretty. It rained on us a little, but we didn't get that wet. When we got back from our walk, we were offered a drink and they had Dr. Pepper! They brought it with them from the US when they went to Florida, and still had a few cans, so I took one! They don't have Dr. Pepper in France. It's just Coke, Pepsi, Orange and Yellow Fanta, Sprite, and occasionally Cherry Coke. There is a French drink called Orangina which has really grown on me. It's like a soda orange juice with little bits of pulp and everything. I didn't like it the first time I had it, but now I'm quite a fan. After our drinks, we left for Roclincourt at around 5:30.

My host family is so interesting. My host mom has a gay brother who is a playwright and lives in Paris with his boyfriend and has a production opening up in Canada in September. Then there is Jean-Paul who is a professional artist and has expoditions and artwork all over his house. It's really good stuff, too. His website is http://www.tartar.fr/ if you wanna check it out. My host mom herself is the mayor of the town I live in. Then I have a cousin who is schizophrenic and my adopted host brother has down syndrom. My older host brother has twins and so does Jean-Paul's son. And to top it off, we have a cat with three legs. I seriously don't think I could have landed in a more diverse family. It's really neat. I'm not saying my family at home is boring, but we don't have quite the same setup as I do here.

I have got reviewing to do before the Bac Oral, so I'm going to get off and do that.
à demain!
<3Miranda

57 Days

This morning, I was like a walking zombie. I am SO tired. I got myself ready for the day and luckily caught the bus on time. At school, I had 2 hours of DS from 8-10. This week, the subject was history, and the DS had two subjects. You could pick either the Russian Revolution or WW1. I chose the one on WW1. That one had a lot of shortish answer questions over a few documents that followed (and when I say short answer, I don't mean one or two sentences.. it's more like one or two nice sized paragraphs!). The other subject was entirely essay, and I really don't know enough about the Russian Revolution to write an essay.. lol. I understood majority of what I read (or I think I did), and I was able to write a nice amount for each of the 6 questions. I think I should get a decent grade, at least for me. The last question really confusing, though. I didn't really understand what a "synthèse" was, so I just wrote a little summary over everything. It wasn't very long, but my sentences were nicely written.

Anyway, after school, I hung out with a bunch of different people from my class and waited for my host mom. When she picked me up, we came home and I helped Pierre with his birthday party planning. Then we ate lunch and Pierre got ready for dance. I went with to drop him off, but when we got there, he realized he'd made a mistake. He didn't have dance rehearsal today! We went back home and he changed before we went to a sports store. Pierre got some new dance clothes. Now I'm back home chillin' out. Tonight we're going to a band concert in Mt. St. Vaast (which is a town nearby). It's not the group I play with, but Vincent is in this one, and since my host mom and his mom are like, BFFS, we're going to go watch him. It should be fun, though. :)!

I'll talk to y'all tomorrow,
<3miranda

Word of the Day: Garer (garray)= to park

58 Days

Latin was my first class today, and, like normal, I didn't do anything. The class was really small today. There were only about 10 people there. The Première ES and S classes were both on field trips; the ES was at the beach for science, and the S was in Paris for something. Then there are Terminale kids who are also in German, and that overlaps with Latin on Fridays, so they go to that instead. I noticed today, though, that there is a kid who really closely resembles Robert Pattinson. I've never paid a whole lot of attention to many of the other people in that class, before. Usually I just sleep or doodle or write crap in my notebook.

Anyway, after that, we had French. Again, we spent our time preparing for the oral. We went over sample questions for each text and discussed that some.

Then we had an hour off. Sabrina and I went to the library to do some research on all the authors of all the texts that we have. Luckily, I don't have that many since I arrived in February, so I only have to memorize a short biography of 6 authors. Honestly, I still think that is going to be a lot of work, but everyone else has even more. I don't know exactly how many, but there were 6 in 3 and a half months, so there have gotta be quite a few.

When our hour was up, we went to English. All we did was finish going over the questions from the story we started last time.

Then it was lunch time. Today, it was just Sabrina and I since everyone else was out of town. After we finished eating, we went back to the CDI unitl it was one o'clock on the hour and we could leave school. Our friend who had been in the CDI came with us (I forgot his name. haha. Woops.). He hadn't eaten yet, so we went to Subway! I unfortunately, was not hungry after having just eaten, so I didn't get my turkey sub. :(. I did get a cookie and a Sprite, though, because if you don't get something, you can't hang around in the restaurant. Valentine and Benjamin were also there. Benjamin spilled his glass of pop, and then Valentine went and spilled hers, too. There was pop EVERYWHERE. They tried cleaning it up with napkins and tissues, but eventually had to go get one of the workers to mop it up. lol.

Our friend had class at 2, so we started back just after 1:30. On the way, we went into Monoprix so I could get a binder of page protectors (i don't know what else to call it) for my French texts. I also got some new effaseurs since my others are all worn out. I'll buy a tonnn of them before I leave, too, because I have never seen one in Fargo, and I do not know how I am going to live without them. It's ingenius. I never have to write in pencil anymore, because pen erases just as easily! I'll demonstrate this wonderful invention for you when I get home. :)!

Anyways, after stopping by the school, Sabrina and I went clothes shopping for the second hour. I found 2 shirts at a store called Promod. I found some really cute white jeans at Pimkie, too, but they were wayy too long. I've had the hardest time ever trying to find the appropriate size jeans. I finally found out my waist size, but I can't find pants with short inseams! They're all way too long and the leg stretches way out past my feet! haha. I'll keep searching, but I'm hoping it will be warm enough soon for me to just look for shorts and skirts and not have to worry about jeans.

At 3, we had English again. This time, we translated part of the story into French. Then we got a worksheet that I still am shocked by. I'm not saying I didn't find it funny, but it would have NEVER passed at a school in the Sates. I'm pretty sure the teacher would be "dans la merde" if they had a worksheet like this in their class. It was full of slang, dirty expressions that we had to unscramble and make into logical phrases. They were things like "to be pissed off" and "this is pure BS! (only not 'BS')" and lost of other ones I'm not going to put on here since I dunno who all reads this exactly.. lol. Then on the bottom was the real shocker.

The title itself would be enough to keep it away from South High: "Why is a beer better than a women? Below are 15 reasons why." We had to fill in the blanks with the puns, and ohhh my god was that dirrty! I'd have to admit that they were pretty good, though. lol. I'm debating whether or not to type them out for you or not.. I think I will, but if you don't want to read them, skip the list.
1. A beer doesn't get jealous when you fancy another beer.
2.When you go to the pub, you know you can always pick up a beer.
3.A beer won't get angry if you come home with beer on your breath.
4.You don't have to wine and dine a beer.
5.If you pour a beer carefully, you'll always get good head.
6.Hangovers go away.
7.When you've finished with a beer, the bottle is still worth a few pence.
8.You don't have to wash a beer before it tastes good.
9.A beer always goes down easily.
10.You can share a beer with your mates.
11.Beer is always wet.
12.You always know you're the first person to pop a beer.
13.A cold beer is still a good beer.
14.You can have more than one beer and not feel guilty about it.
15.You can enjoy a beer all night long.

Okay, those of you who skipped the list can start reading again, and those of you who read it, well, I warned you :P! That was a fun class period. xD!

Today we did not have Parcours, so after English was over, the day was finished. I hung out at school with Sabrina, Gaëtane, and Alicia in one of the empty classrooms for students to chill in. The plan was to focus on the oral and get all my stuff organized and in my new binder of page protectors. Then the second hour, we were going to walk around town again. Well... that didn't go exactly as planned. I did wayyy more talking than working, and I got almost nothing accomplished at all during the first hour. It was really fun, though. Then Gaëtane and Alicia left, and Sabrina's sister came in. We talked some more, but I eventually got my binder all organized. I practiced reading through a couple texts, too, because when I take the oral, I have to read the whole text aloud to the teacher and I'll be graded on it. That's going to hurt me if I don't read through them all a couple times over the weekend.

After school, we went outside and I hung out with Wendie, Alice, Joy, Sabrina, Bryan, and a few other people from my class who were still around. We talked until my bus came. I actually nearly missed it! Thankfully Sabrina saw Vincent get on, so she told me and I had to run a little to catch it before it left. ha. There were only 4 people on the bus after school. lol. I thought that was kind of funny. Usually there are around 10 people or so. I dunno what happened with everyone else. haha.

Anyway, I got home from school and Pierre was already at dance rehearsal. My host mom was home, but she was getting ready to go back to the Mairie to finish up her work for the day. I got on the computer until an hour later, my host mom took me with to go get Pierre. After we got home, I made some photocopies of some of Sabrina's texts I need for the oral and now I'm currently in the process of retyping another one. I can't make a copy since it's hilighted all over, and I can't use that one because the copies in my binder have to be blank and can't have any markings on them.

But I'm going to get back to that and then study my history a little. I have a DS tomorrow over the Russian Revolution and the first World War, and I have a lott of dates to memorize.

à demain!
<3Miranda

Word of the Day: du sang (pernounced like 'song')= blood.

59 Days

This morning started out with geography. We had to label the regions of France on a map. I got 4 right- Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Britagne, Normandie Basse, and Corse. lol. I had Picardie on there, too, but it was one too low, so I can't count it. It didn't really matter, though, because we went over the answers together a few minutes later. Then we talked about the breakdown of regions, departements, and communs. After that, we focused on the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region (where I am). This region is the 4th largest population wise (there are 22 total)! From the way people talk about it, I had thought I was in an underpopulated, North Dakota type region. lol.

After hitoire/géo, I had my first hour of French for the day. All everyone did was organize their binders some more and get texts together for the Bac Blanc Orale next week. I talked with Sabrina for a while, since she was finished, but then she went to help someone else, so I entertained myself with a pen and paper for the rest of the hour.

Math started out with nothing of intrest (finishing going over the DM), so I found some fun stuff on my calculator to play with. lol. Then we took some notes on "Algebraic equasions with two variables." The example was: x+y=10; with what numbers could one replace x and y? haha. We had a little story problem, too, but there wasn't enough time to solve it before class ended. Zut! :P

In Anglais Complementaire today, Alice started off with a little vocab oral. She did really good on that, and the class gave her a 19.5 (yeah, the class decided her grade). Then we had to do another worksheet on this cartoon:

Only, when we looked at it, the caption below was way off to the side and it wasn't in italics or anything, so it wasn't overly clear that the guy changing the tire was saying it. No one in my class got that, but my teacher insisted that it was easy! There were quotation marks, so that obviously means someone had to be talking! When the class argued it further, he did what he always does and asked me, "Miranda, it's clear that the man is talking, is it not?" I said that I thought it was the author, but he misunderstood me and thought I said 'father.' Everyone argued a little more and then I said that if the father was the one talking, he needed a speech bubble. My teacher (who is always right) said no. You can have cartoons where the speech is at the bottom of the page or at the side or on top or wherever you want. I've seen it on top and bottom before, but I've never seen it off to the side.. and if it's seperate from the character, it's still outlined in a bubble-like box! It's not completely on its own floating around on the side of the paper. Whatever. Sabrina put her two cents into the 'discussion' and my teacher turns to me, "Sabrina is often complaining, yes?" I looked at him with a 'wow. I can't believe you just said that' expression, and said, "Umm No..." Then he goes, "I say that now a little because she complains now a little" or something weird like that. Then the arguement struck back up and lasted right up to the end of class. But since he is always right, he still didn't give in. That'll be a wrong answer for anyone who wrote it.

Mkay. I'm done ranting, sorry. After that class was over, Marion, Sabrina, and I ate lunch. Virginie and Laureen had already finished class for the day, so they went to McDonalds and then I dunno, home maybe? After lunch, Marion had class, so Sabrina and I went to the CDI. She worked on her French thing and since I already turned mine in on Tuesday, I killed some time on the computer. I Google Earth'd Fargo again. And I went to the school webpage to see what's new. My daily planner login doesn't work, lol. I tried that once! :P. Hopefully you all had fun at Spiritacular today. :)! I saw that was on there. Then I checked my email and BS'd around.

Our break ended at 4, when it was time for 2 hours of French. The teacher talked for a while at the beginning, but then we had a little over an hour to work on our binders again. I talked with Sabrina some, and then I flipped through the pages of my binder a million times. My teacher came over to me and asked me if I wanted to try taking the Bac Blanc Orale. She said she would add me to her list if I wanted (everyone presents in front of a French teacher, but it's not necessarily the same one you have for class). I of course said yes, and I will be taking my Bac Blanc Orale on Tuesday, May 19 at 11h15 with Mme Dejegheare (sp?) in room 60. I have to bring my binder full of clean, organized texts and the teacher will pick one out for me to present and give me a 'problematique.' I get 30 minutes to write up a commentaire and answer the 'problematique' supported with examples from the text. Then I have 20 minutes to talk. Ten of those minutes will be spent presenting my commentaire and during the other 10, my teacher will ask me questions on 'complementary texts' that go along with the one my commentaire is on. That might not be a hundred percent correct, but that's what I understood. I will let you know exactly what happens next Tuesday after I've taken it.

After school, it was raining really hard. It rains quite frequently here, actually. I've never really mentioned that before. I've noticed we usually get one week of nasty rainy weather and then the next week is sunny and hot. So if that holds true, next week should be nice :)! Anyway, I came home, ate a snack, and got online. We're going to be eating supper shortly, so I'ma get off.

I'll talk to you tomorrow!
<3miranda

Expression of the Day: Il pleut comme une vache qui pisse! = It's raining really hard.

60 Days

Today was alright. Sabrina had her "Journée d'Appele" at the Mairie, so she wasn't at school today. I don't know exactly what that consists of, but when you're a certain age, your town's mayor calls you and you have to go to the Mairie for the day and do some stuff. If you don't go, you can't take your Bac or something like that, so it must be pretty important.

I moved over a spot and sat next to Joy during math. We talked a little, but being in the front center spot makes it a little difficult to get away with. I mainly doodled on my DM as we went over all the answers. I got a 10 on that, by the wayy :)! That was the one Justine and I worked on in the library a week or so ago. The one I did yesterday is for tomorrow. All we really in class was go over that, so there isn't a whole lot to share.

In theatre, Alice had a note that said she wouldn't be at the performance next Wednesday. We don't have school that Thursday beacuse of 'Acsension,' so she's going to be out of town. The teacher was pretty pissed about that. She had a piece with Wendie and one with me. I honestly do not feel ready anyway, and nor does Wendie for hers, so really, there is no major problem. The teacher really wants me to do mine, though, since "that's what I want." She asked Wendie if she could replace Alice in my scene, but I'd already told her I didn't mind not doing it, so Wendie insisted there wasn't enough time to get it all prepared. The teacher was ready to give in when a girl in the front, Barbara, volunteered to work with me. My teacher asked me if that would be okay, and I told her that I don't think I will be ready by next Wednesday, but she told me I can work on it and we will see. Sooo, class went on and I went through the text with Barbara a couple times. She's really good at theatre, so we got some ideas for the scene presentation down and modified the text a little bit. I'm feeling a little bit better about the scene, but I still don't want to present it in front of a crowd of people. I'm still too focused on getting the words out right to act. I don't want tomatoes thrown at me while I'm on stage. haha. I have two more days to go through it, though, so mayyybe it will get better. We'll see.

After the bus dropped me off after school, I hung out with Pierre while lunch was cooking. We got some stuff ready for his birthday party, which is at the end of May. When we finished eating, we made the invitations on the computer. Now he's at the kiné and I'm home alone. I'll probably talk on line a little longer and then work on some French until music at 5.

à demain!
<3Miranda


Oh, and thank you, Sarah!! :D!

Word of the Day: un péché (payshay) = a sin

61 Days

In exactly 2 months, I will be on my way home. I'm excited to see you all again and everything, but I really wouldn't mind staying longer. The time has gone by soo quickly. I can't believe I've been here 4 months. That sounds like forever, but it feels like nothing.

Anyways, sorry I didn't get to finishing up my day last night, I'll do that when I get home from school today. Right now, it's about 2:20 and I don't have class until français at 4. We just ate lunch, and now Sabrina is working on her French anthologie (and I really should be, too).

This morning I had Latin. I just wrote a page of BS in my notebook, since there was nothing else to do. The teacher didn't have enough copies of the text, so I was the lucky person not to get one. It's not like it really makes a difference, though, since I don't understand anything.

After that, I had French. We just talked about the Oral, and the teacher told us our day, time, and teacher we would be presenting in front of. I wasn't on the list, so I won't be doing that. It doesn't bother me, though. We've done 2 practice orals in class, and I haven't been able to successfully get one together either time, so I probably would just waste the teacher's time if I took the Orale Blanc.

After French, I spent 3 hours in the history room. That happens every other week, and I always dread it. We get breaks every hour, but the time still goes by soo slowly. We finished up talking about the French crisis in the 1930s during the first two hours. The third hour is actually another course, but it's in the same room with the same teacher, and the material is often really similar, so it might as well be the same thing. We talked about the Nord and Pas-de-Calais region of France and our teacher spent a good half hour telling us how to color, key, and label a good map. We have to do one of Nord Pas-de-Calais for the next time we have this EJCS(?) class (which is in 2 weeks).

After that, it was lunch time, and now I'm in the CDI. I really should finish up my anthologie, though, so I'm gonna go. I'll get on the computer at home and finish up yesterday's, as well as add anything of intrest that happens later today.

à tout à l'heure!
<3miranda

Word of the Day: un frisson (free zo)= a shiver

62 Days

Last night, I had thee weirdest dream. I dremt I was on the TGV taking a shower (there aren't even showers on there), and I took too long and when my stop came, I ran off the train and forgot all my luggage and everything but the clothes I was wearing and the towel wrapped around my hair. The train left and I was stuck at the train station with some people from my class. We were supposed to catch another train, but it was running late, so no one was doing much of anything. I told a security guy at the train station that I left my luggage on the train, but I couldn't remember the train number or where I was coming from, so he couldn't do anything to help me. Then my alarm went off and I woke up. That was the first dream I've actually remembered in a longggg time. There was a little more to it than that, but it's too complicated to type out. I don't remember everything perfectly, either, lol.

Anywayyy... I started my week off with one of my favorite classes (LOL) - Anglais Complementaire. We went over our worksheet from last week, and then talked about nothing of intrest. haha.

After that class ended, I had an hour off. I ran into Laureen and Virginie, and they didn't have class either, so they helped me with some of the questions I had on the French project. We didn't finish that, but at the end of the hour, I had theatre, so we had to quit.

In theatre, Alice was back from Sweeden, so we could work on the text together again. Wendie came with us and the three of us went through the text once and then talked about Sweeden. haha. Alice had a great time, but she said she had a hard time understanding the language. Sweedish is a mixture of German, English, French? and some other languages (I don't remember exactly what). I learned a few words from Alice- Hey= hey. Heyo= bye. Caca= cake. To(?)= thank you.

After theatre, I met up with Sabrina and we got our food before finding Laureen, Virginie, and Marion. Marion told us about her experience in Sweeden, and it sounded like she also had a good time.

Since it's a B week, we didn't have Anglish LV1 at 1:30. Sabrina and I went to the CDI instead and she helped me work on my French. Again, we ran out of time before I finished, but she said we could print what I had and write the last little bit in pen. We took my stuff to the color printer, and it took foreverrr, so the librarian told us he'd give it to Sabrina's sister (who was in the library as well) when it was all done printing and she would give it to us during the break between classes. That worked out well, and after sitting through an hour and a half of physical science, I got my papers. All we really did in physical science was go over our Bac and then

°finishing up from where I left off yesterday,

then in science, we did a worksheet. We had English LV1 after that, and since we chose to skip out on DS Saturday, we had to take it today. It was longgg and I don't think anyone finished. I know I didn't! I had the 6 point essay left at the end, so that'll knock me down quite a bit, but I don't really care anyway. When English was over, it was time for French. There was a speaker the whole hour who talked about universities and things to think about and all that. It was kind of interesting, but I was too tired to pay attention the whole time, so I missed quite a bit when I zoned out. Because of the speaker, our teacher told us we could turn in our anthologies later on in the week. Here, they are really laid back with due dates. If you ask for a reasonable amount of extra time (even if you had two or three weeks to do something), the teacher usually gives it to you without punishment. I really like that. That allows you to do a really good job with your stuff, and you don't end up rushing through at the end just to get it done.

After school, I came home to an empty house. Pierre was at dance (they have a performance next week, so he has it a few extra days) and my host mother was at the Mairie. I got on the computer, cranked up my ipod, and chilled out. haha. My host mom came home and I left with her to go pick up Pierre (and that is where I left off yesterday). We came back home, ate dinner, and I worked on some French stuff. Then I went to bed.

***

Today, after I left off, nothing overly exciting happened. I had French, but we just organized papers and got "complementary texts" that we didn't already have to prepare for the oral. From 5-6, I worked on my math homework with Claire (from Latin). Then I came home, ate a snack, worked on French a little, and then ate supper. Nouvelle Star (like American Idol) is on TV now, so I'm going to watch that!
BYE!
<3

Your word of the day is on today's post. (:

63 Days

Today after I was up and ready, I washed the lawn chairs with Pierre and helped my host mom prepare for the family BBQ. Around noon, Thomas and his family showed up. Then came Annick, Luc (who just got back from Canada), Grandma, Mme Noël, and Samuel (Annick's son). We ate the appatizers and Luc told us about his trip to Canada. He was there for the month of April working on a play he wrote. It's going to open on September 1st, so if anyone is in Quebec during that time and feels like watching a French play, there ya go. He didn't stay long since he had to get to a rehearsal at the theatre in Arras, but he will be at Pierre's birthday party at the end of the month, so I'll find out more about this play, then (including its name. haha).

The rest of us went through all the other courses as normal, eating either a hotdog or a mexican steak-looking thing off the grill for the main course. When we finished, I played with Romane, Lou-Marie, Lilian, and Pierre for a while. That really wore me outt. I am going to sleep so well tonight. haha. Everyone left around 6, and my host mom, Pierre, and I went over to see Simon. He wasn't there, but Claire, Lola, and Marius were. We visited with them for a little while, then returned back home.

I'm getting my Main Square pass tomorrow, so I'm superr duper pumped for that!!! I'm going to go all 4 days (July 2,3,4,5), so I'm gonna see Coldplay, Lenny Kravitz, Placebo, Katy Perry, and a bunch of other groups that I do not remember.. I'm really looking forward to that :D! I guess on the 4th of July, there is a little festival at the aerodrome (a tinyy airport outside of town), and my host mom gets to ride in a hot air balloon and told me I can go up with her if I want! That will be a very eventful week. I'm excited. :)! Oh, and if any of you French travelers know the dates you'll be in Paris, I need to know as soon as possible. My host mom keeps asking me so she can plan a trip, but I dunno yet, so when you guys find out, someone should comment me or send me an email (missmirandamari3@hotmail.com). Thank you! I'm reallyyyyyy excited to see you all, too! Hopefully I do alright talking in English.. haha. I can type it fine, but when I try and talk in English class, my sentences are completely mingled up with French. It takes a lot of concentration to get them out right. lol.

Ummmmm, I really don't have any other news to share today. I'll talk to you again tomorrow!
<3Miranda

Word of the Day: une coccinelle (cock seee nell) = a ladybug

64 Days

ahh j'en ai marre!
I've been working all day on my French project looking up words from each book extract that I don't know... and believe me, there are quite a few in each one. On average, I'd say there are about 10 words in each 15-20 line extract and there are 7 total, so I spent my afternoon looking up 70 words in English and again in French for an official deffinition. From 4-6, I took a break and went with my host family to a movie. It was a French film called 'Romaine Par Moins 30.' It was about a girl whose fiancé surprised her with a trip to Canada, but when she found out, she was really upset because she hates the cold. On the plane, she heard a lady talking about it crashing, so she freaked out and told her fiancé how upset she was to be going to Canada and went on about some other things, too. They split up at the airport and she was supposed to fly back home that night, but a bunch of stuff happened and she wound up getting herself married to some guy she didn't even know the name of and yeah... it got kind of wild. I understood majority of the film, but to me, the movie just stopped; it didn't really end. Or maybe it did, I just didn't get the punchline. lol. That was seriously all I did today.

Yesterday I was a little busier, though. When I was up and ready, Annick came over and we all had lunch together. Then we talked and around 3, Annick left and my host mom & I went to a flower display. The Roclincourt giant was there, along with Pierre-Antoine, Antoine, Simon, Amadine, Arlette, Gille (Pierre-Antoine's dad), and a few other people I didn't know. We didn't stay long, but I got to talk for a little bit. Afterwards, my host mom and I went into Arras to an indoor garden show. My host mom bought plant bulbs for her garden, and then we looked around some before leaving. We stopped over at Thomas's house and visited with everyone. Then we came back home and I helped my host mom start cleaning the veranda. That is going to take quite some time to finish. There are a million toys mixed together in different bins and a lot of them are dirty and/or broken, so we're going through all that stuff and reorganizing everything. Supper came around, and as we finished up eating, Simon came over to see if I wanted to go to a café with the group that night. I hadn't been to a café with them since February and my host mom was cool with it, so I said yes. Fourty-five minutes later, he, Antoine, Pierre-Antoine, and Amadine came to pick me up. We went to the same café as the first Saturday I was here. If I remember correctly, it's called the Boabob Kfé (or something like that). We hung out and talked and I had my usual coke with grenodine this time. I got home around 12:30 and everyone was already sleeping, so that is my excuse for not blogging. I got a really good-night's sleep last night, though! I slept in until almost 11 this morning!

But I should really get back to work. It's already 9:20PM and I would like to finish my French tonight. Tomorrow we're having a big BBQ with the whole family, so I won't have much time. I'll try and get on and write a blog post, but if not, I'll talk to you Monday!

au revoir!
<3miranda

French Word for the Day: ébahissement = astonishment. (That was one of the words I looked up recently. lol)

66 Days

Today was my last day of school for the week! Since tomorrow is D-Day, we don't have school. We were supposed to have DS on Saturday, but everyone was complaining to my English teacher (since that's the subject this week), and she agreed not to give the test.

I had history to start out with for 2 hours. We had a test on the Presidents of the 5th Republic and their dates in office as well as the layout of the French government. I got the president stuff right (since there are only 5 of them. haha) and I filled in the boxes of the different parts of the government alright.. but when it came to the written questions, I don't think I got more than one right. hahaha. We'll have to see how it turns out. After that, we finished up our notes on the Russian revolution and began talking about the crisis in France in the 1930s.

French was next, and all we did was review texts for the Bac Blanc Orale. We were left to work on our own or with a partner or two, so I worked with Sabrina and Marion. I don't really have much else to say about that.

After French I had math! Once we handed in our homework and went over a couple things, we started talking about Algebra! haha! It's like, basic algebra, too, so I felt really smart when I already knew how to do everything!! I'm really excited for this chapter. lol. We had a couple homework problems, and I finished those in Anglais Complementaire, which was my next class.

In Anglais Complementaire, we got another picture and had to answer questions about it. This time, it was a picture of the earth with a "pressure cooker" squeezing it. I had never seen one of those before, but my teacher explained that it's a piece of equipment used to cook meats and veggies and other foods really fast by heating it up and compressing it. I dunno what else to say, but he told me I should buy one and bring it back to the States for my family. haha. I'll have to think about that one....

At one o'clock, I was done with classes for the week! Sabrina and I met up with Virginie and Laureen in the cafeteria and we ate together. Afterwards, we went to the CDI so Sabrina and I could work on our French things. GOOGLE TRANSLATOR = TERRIBLE for any of you cheaters out there. haha. My topic is on novels where someone recollects a love story. I decided to use an extract from Ethan Frome, and since I couldn't get it in French, I translated the page using google translator. I thought I would run it past Sabrina just in case it had a few mistakes, and NOTHING made sense to her. haha. We went through it sentence by sentence and translated it so that it made sense. Three o'clock rolled around, and I was going to go into town to get some things, so I left with Virginie and Laureen. Sabrina chose to stay behind and work on her French. Our first stop was the post office. We had to take a ticket and then wait for a million years. As we were waiting, Virginie bought a cherry coke from the vending machine. I guess that's a new thing in France, because neither of them had ever tasted it before. Like most French people, they opened the can and smelled it before taking a sip. I don't know why, but French people seem to be interested in smelling everything. In physical science, our teacher takes the flask around so everyone can sniff the concoction. The other day at the craft show, the lady passed around all the different bottles of things for us to smell them. I find that kind of amusing. lol. Anywayyy, getting back on track, after I bought my stamps, we went to a store called "Miss Coquines" where Laureen bought a pair of jeans and Virginie got some shoes.

Virginie had to go, so we walked back to the school for her to meet up with her ride. We passed an ATM machine on the way, so I took out some cash so I can buy my Main Square pass over the weekend. We said goodbye to Virginie, and then went back to the CDI to find Sabrina again. She worked at the computer for another half hour, and then we finished up translating the Ethan Frome text. At the end of the hour, we left school again (with Sab this time) and I bought a small binder of page protectors for my French project. Then we went to the Furet and listened to music for a while. Laureen's boyfriend arrived at the train station just before 6, so we walked with her and then Sabrina and I went back to school to catch the bus.

Now I'm at home, and I'm going to get off since I've been on here for a while. I've been trying to find a decent proxy that will let me not only view the facebook homepage, but also long innnn to facebook. If anyone has some suggestions, let me know. Thankss :)!

à demain.
-miranda

67 Days

Today I went from a really great mood to a really pissed off mood. We'll start off with the good part at the beginning.

I got up and got ready, and then had some extra time, so I made Wendie a birthday card since it's her birthday today. At 9:00, I had math. We got this huge assignment to do for next week, and worked on that the whole hour. Sabrina and I worked together, but we didn't get very far, lol.

In theatre, Wendie and I read through my text a couple times, and then the teacher wanted to go through it with us since she hadn't even heard me read it, yet. She had a really difficult time understanding my accent, so she made me read insanely slow reading each word one-by-one concentrating on the articulation and pernouncing everything the best I could. There were a few things I really sucked at saying, so she changed my lines and we rearranged some of the parts. Honestly, it sounded good to me, and no one else has difficulty understanding me (at least no one's said anything or made me repeat things often), but whateverr. I have to continue to read s u p e r s l o w l y until she says otherwise. That's seriously a lot easier said than done. Now that I recognize all the words and everything, I want to read at a normal pace, but I have to force myself to slow down. It does make me focus more on the pernounciation, though, so I can't say it's pointless. It's just a little frustrating.

After that comes the hilight of my day. Wendie and I went off to practice a little on our own and she was trying to help me get my pernounciation down. We spent forEVER trying to get my 'R' to come out, and after talking about it and trying a million times, I got it!!!! I had always thought it was a harsher roll than it really is. It helps to think of it like an 'hhhh' sound with a tiny bit of a roll to it. I dunno how to explain it exactly, but you basically start out by making the 'hhhhh' sound and then you add the hacking sound (for lack of a better term) to it and voilà! For now, I can only get it out when I talk at a slow to moderate pace, so now I've gotta go back to the beginning and slow down in conversation again. That kind of sucks, but hopefully it won't last too long and I'll be able to pick up speed pretty quickly. We attempted to work on my 'U,' too, and I can make the right sound only about half of the time. I'm going to continue to work on that as well, and hopefully by the end, my American accent will be gonee.

Anyway, after school I came home and had lunch. Afterwards, I started working on my French 'anthologie' (which is taking FOREVER) and got 2 out of the 8 pretty much finished. I was in the middle of the third one when my host mom wanted to take me to a lady's house for a craft show (I don't really know how else to describe it). I left the computer with my stuff up and went with my host mom. There was a lady there who does all kinds of crafty things with napkins and paint and furnature and vases and pots and tons of stuff, and she was showing them off and explaining how it was done, and then you could buy kits and paint colors and all that so you can do it yourself. My host mom bought a kit to do one of her little tables out on the veranda. It's supposed to arrive in about 10 days, so I'll let you know when we actually do that. It was interesting to see this lady's presentation. All of her stuff was awesome. I don't think I could get the same results no matter how hard I tried. haha. When I came back home, I went to the computer and EVERYTHING was closed out. The Internet sites with the extracts, the three documents (only two of them had been saved!!), everything was closed. I know Pierre had to have done it, too, because he was the only one here and the two documents I changed slightly since the previous save were saved over, but the other one was completely deleted. I'm assuming he just clicked 'Yes' for all the messages that popped up when he clicked the X, because they would have been something like, "Save changes before exiting?" (yes) and then "Are you sure you want to exit without saving?" (yes). That reallyyyy pisses me off! He asked me at lunch if I could help him put music on his MP3 player, and I told him I would after I finished my homework, so I think that when I left, he tried to do it himself and closed all my documents. gahhhh. I wish he could have just minimized them if he reallyy felt the need to get on the computer. I also wished I would have thought about that ahead of time and saved my stuff right before I left. I learned my lesson the hard way, and now I've gotta restart the 3rd one and then do 5 to 7 more.

Damn. I've gotta go to music, now. I forgot about that. I'm going to be up late tonight! -.-

à demain.
-Miranda

French Word of the Day: Enregistrer = to save

68 Days

This morning started out with Latin. I didn't even bother to listen in that class and mostly just reviewed the summary my host mom wrote me of Le Parfum. Right after Latin I had French. We had a "reading quiz" over the book. However, it was NOT a quiz! There were 8 questions and they all required in-depth responses. The summary I had hardly helped me at all. After I finished, I waited quietly until class was over.

Next I had two hours of history. Before class started, a lady came in to see if any of us or family members had traveled to Mexico or the United States over the vacation. Luckily, no one in my class had left the continent, so I don't think I've got to worry about catching the pig flu. I don't know how much it's changed, but as of Sunday, there were only 2 cases in France and they're both people who traveled to Mexico, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe. Don't worry :P

When class started, we talked about the Russian Revolution and, no lie, we listened to the Rasputin songgg!! hahaha! It was even in English! My teacher had the French lyrics up on the overhead for everyone to follow along. We took notes majority of the rest of the time. I'm getting a lot better at that. I can catch a few things as she says them, but I fall behind quickly, so I still rely on Kevin's notes. I have gotten a lot faster at writing, too. I don't have to look a million times per sentance anymore and can usually figure out what the illegible words are without having to ask. Class ended with a short video.

Then it was lunchtime. Marion is still in Sweeden (I said Switzerland yesterday, but I guess it's actually Sweeden), and Laureen had some meeting thing at the city hall all day, so it was just Sabrina, Virginie, and I. We talked for a longg time, and then at 2, Virginie had Phy Ed. Sabrina and I went to the CDI so she could work on her French paper and I was going to go on facebook, since I haven't done that for weeks, but IT"S BLOCKEDDD! The school got a filter and it blocks faceboooook! :(! That really makes me mad! I get tons of email notifications that I have wall posts or messages or friend requests and whatnot and I won't be able to see any of that for a longg time, now. Thanks a lot, Gambetta.

Since I couldn't do a whole lot on the computer, I went over to a table with Justine and she helped me with my math homework. She didn't know how to do 2 problems, so I left those blank, but other than that, I finished! That felt good to get that done!

I had French again at 4. Since a bunch of people hadn't finished the quiz, the teacher gave us the class period to finish that up. Those of us who were already done could either work on our material for the Bac Blanc Orale or rewrite our Bac Blanc Français questions and essays without faults. I chose to rewrite my essay since I honestly don't even think I have all the papers for the Orale. I don't know if I want to take that. It's one thing to BS something on paper, but when you have to try and do that in front of someone who's scoring you, it's a little trickier. Like I said, I don't think I have all the materials either. It's over a bunch of scenes from "Phèdre" (along with a million 'complementary texts'), which my class has been talking about since the beginning of the year. If I decide I want to take the Orale, I can get all the photocopies I'm missing from my teacher on Thursday, but I dunno. We'll see. Anyway, I mainly just sat there rereading the text over and over because I honestly had no idea how to respond to the questions. I understood what the question was asking, but I could not comprehend the text well enough to answer it. My teacher told me I should skip that and go right to the essay, and I should also switch from the 'dissertation' to the 'ecrit d'invention' because it would be more interesting for me. I wrote the title and set my paper up, but that was all I had time for before class was over.

My bus doesn't come until 6:08, so I had an hour to hang out with Sabrina and Virginie. We left school and went to the 'librairie' (bookstore), where we read through some fun books and talked. The time went by fast and before we knew it, it was almost 6:00, so we returned to school. My bus came and I went home. I ate a snack and then watched some tv with Pierre before getting online.

Until tomorrow,
-Miranda<3

A little French for y'all: "faire exprès" = to do (sthg) on purpose ("ne faire pas exprès" = to not do (sthg) on purpose).

69 Days

Today I was in a really good mood. It was nice to see all my friends at school again. I woke up before my alarm went off and layed in bed until it finally did at 8. After getting myself all ready for the day, I had some extra time, so I started to empty the dishwasher. I didn't finish before it was time to leave, but I got a good start. My host mom took me to school at 9:45 for Anglais Complementaire. That class was as wonderful as always. We went over the questions from our oral quiz before the vacation. He asked one girl what the name of the type of drawing was. She said it was a cartoon. He told her it was not a cartoon, then he did what he always does and turned to me for the answer. "What would you call this at home?" he asked me. "A cartoon," I responded. I honestly was not trying to be a brat, but he asked what I call it at home and that is the honest answer. He was a little upset with my answer, but he added "You mean you would call it a cartoon strip. You could also call it a comic strip." I didn't want to argue, so I went along with that. Maybe in England they do call them cartoon strips. He said it was not simply a cartoon because there was more than one picture. They weren't in seperate boxes in a strip, though, so therefore I would consider that a cartoon. Whatever. I made a spelling error on my paper, too, and he pointed it out in a 'haha I knew that and you didn't!' kinf of way that ticked me off. It went like this: *pointing at my paper* "Is that how you would spell humorous?" (I had spelled it 'humerous') "Uhh, no. But I'm not perfect. I do make spelling errors..." "Yes, yes. I'm sure you do." The last thing that kind of stood out in this class today was actually at the beginning. Sorry this is out of order. He was asking us what we did over the vacation and there were a couple girls who had gotten really tan and said they went to the south and all that. Then he turns to me and goes, "You are not tan. What did you do over the vacation?" I told him that I went south, too, and then he wanted to know WHY I did not get a tan. ha. I wanted to be like, 'Oh, because I hate the sun and decided to stay inside the whole time.' but instead I just told him that where I was it was cloudy. Hah. I dunno why I didn't tan! Probably because I didn't lay out and bake all day long! Lol. That didn't really irritate me, I just found that kind of funny.

Next I had a break which I spent in the CDI. After that was theatre. Alice is in Switzerland doing an exchange for two weeks (the schools do that often here with a couple different places), so we couldn't work on our text together. The teacher told Wendie to take her place since we have our big performance here in May and I've only gone through this text once. My lines are not memorized or anything. I can read through it well, but I don't understand everything I'm saying, so it will be a little difficult to act out. Hopefully everything will be worked out before the end of the month.

I only had a half hour between theatre and Anglais LV1, so I ate a quick lunch with Sabrina, Virginie, and Laureen (Marion is in Switzerland, too) and then went to class. We did a translation worksheet and then went through the Bac Anglais that everyone will take next year. We got a sample text and questions and the teacher told us how to go about it and our time limits and everything. We had a while to read it silently. Noo one understood the story. There were weird names and some complex vocabulary terms and I can see how it would be challenging. Now that my French is overall pretty decent, I was able to summarize it for them. I actually had fun doing that. Haha. It doesn't sound overly amusing, but really it was! I like translating English into French for people. :)!

Normally, since it is an A week, I would have had SVT, but since we didn't have school the Monday before the vacation, we missed SPC, so the groups switched and I had SPC this week to make up for it. I LEARNED SOMETHING INTERESTING TODAY! haha! I dunno how many of you already know this, but the reason we put salt and/or sand on the roads in the winter is because it melts the snow (obviously). The interesting thing is that it does this by changing the snow into "saltwater" and therefore changing the temperature of the freezing point of the water, because saltwater freezes at a different temperature than regular water! I didn't fully catch the sand part, but I'm pretty sure it's the same deal. I also answered a question in class today! We were going through the names for when a solid changes to a liquid and a liquid changes to a gas and all that stuff, and most of the terms were pretty close, so I went ahead and guessed sublimation for the change from a solid to a gas- and I was right! :)! The rest of that class went by kind of slowly, though. The teacher did a little demonstration with the temperature change of water with ice and salt and i don't even know exactly. I mainly just talked with Sabrina, Jeremy, and Rafaël during that part.

After that class, I had Anglais LV1 again. We continued with the practice Bac again. A some work time had passed, my teacher called on me to read the passage. I was a little smarter this time and read slowly so everyone could follow along. After that, we spent the rest of class going through the questions. One thing I keep forgetting to point out is that my teacher calls me Melinda allll the time. She's not the only one, either. Madame Noëlle calls me Melinda sometimes, too! And it's happened other times, too. I don't know why Melinda seems to be confused with Miranda, but I answer to both, so it doesn't really matter. Madame Noëlle usually gets it right now, and I've corrected my teacher a few times, but she doesn't usually remember, so whatevs. I don't care that much. I just find that kind of strange.

The day ended with French. We talked most of the period about plans for the week and things that were coming up and whatnot. Then we got our Bac Blanc back! I GOT A 3/20! hahahaha! It was a different teacher that corrected our papers, and she actually thought I was French. She asked my teacher afterwards and said afterwards that I did a really good job for being a foreigner. Granted, everyone else had something around 10, but I lost most of my points because I didn't follow the format correctly and because I took a lot of things directly from the text and didn't write enough in my own words on the question part. I'm still pretty content with myself, though. A three isn't great when you compare it to everyone else, but I'm satisfied with it. :)! We have to rewrite our essay section and make all the necessary corrections and turn that in at a later time. I'm not sure exactly when that's due, but Sabrina said it will probably be sometime next week.

After school, I almost missed my bus. I couldn't remember exactly when it came, and decided on 6:18 instead of 6:08, so I wasn't watching for it. Ooops. Luckily, the stoplight was red, so when I caught sight of it, I ran up and the driver let me on.

When I got home, I ate a snack with Pierre and watched some TV. Then I got myself online. Same old stuff, there. Since I was gone, I never did my monthy progress update or set goals for this month, so I'm going to do that quickly. I've gotten a lotttt better with my pronouns! They come out naturally now, and I don't have to think about it everytime I want to use them. 'En' is the only one that I still have a little trouble with. It can be used in a few different ways, and I've got most of them down, but I don't remember all of them. I don't use 'lui' and 'leur' much, either. I'll have to review thse for next month. My others are honestly pretty good, though. I've always had trouble with pronouns, so I'm really happy with how well that came along. This month I reallyyy would like to work on getting the genders of nouns right. Normally, I just guess and hope I get it right. People understand either way, so I never really cared much. Now that I've got a hold of the other, more important, grammar stuff, I can work on those. We'll see how that comes along by the end of May.

It's time to eat, so I'll write again tomorrow!
bonne soirée!
<3Miranda

French Expression of the Day: Ce n'est pas grave! = It's no big deal/ Don't worry about it!

70 Days

I'm back!!! I got home about an hour ago, and I'm really tired. It was a 7 hour train ride, with a train change at the Charles de Gaule station in Paris. I didn't sleep at all, but I triedd! I ended up just reading a magazine I bought yesterday and then just listened to my ipod.

Anyway, the trip went really well. Personally, I thought the weather was nice, but everyone told me that it was cold for the south. I don't know exactly what the temperature was (because I really suck at guessing), but it was warm enough for me to wear shorts comfortably two or three days! It only rained one day (Tuesday) when we were in Spain. The only thing that kind of sucked was that it was really windy. When we went to the beach, the sand blew so hard that it hurt my legs.

The beach itself was really pretty, though! You look one way and you see the Mediterranean Sea, and if you turn around, you get the Pyrenees Mountains. It's like, the perfect place for my family to go on vacation (hint hint ;D); you get the mountains for my dad and the beach for everyone else. haha.

While I was there, I met my my host mom's ex husband, (Pierre), his wife (Céline), their kids (Laina, 10 and Mathis, 7 or 8?). I also met my host sister (Marion), her husband (Nicolas), and their kids (Sarah, 4 and Charlie, 8 mos), as well as my other host sister (Fanny) and her boyfriend of 3? years (Hugo). They all live in towns around Perpignan, so I got to see them often.

My week was spent mainly chilling out with that massive family taking walks up and down the beach. There are lots of people that sell things along the sidewalk and a couple fair rides and games and stuff like that. My host mom, Pierre, and I went to a castle one day and took a tour of that. I took about a million pictures of that thing! It was so cool! I've seen tons of castles from the road before, but that was my first time entering one.

On Tuesday, we went into Spain to do some shopping and walking around. It took us foreverrr to get through the border, even though the gaurds don't do anything but watch the vehicles drive by. We got into Roses at about one o'clock and ate lunch at a café. There wasn't anything overly authentic, so I just ate spaghetti. After lunch, we went to go shopping, but almost alll of the shops were closed until 4 or 4:30! In Spain, they take the afternoon off for a "siesta" in some towns, so that kind of sucked. After walking around a little while, we decided to try another town. We drove to Girona, but it was pouring rain, so we didn't even get out of the car. We stopped in a town near the border called La Junctia (or something like that) and I went crazy. haha. First of all, in Spain, things are much cheaper than in France because of some tax or something like that, so my host mom wanted to go to a parfum store and buy parfums for herself and her daughters and Annick and i don't even know all who. Anyways, I, of course, went with and I decided I'd buy one, too. They weren't exactly what I would call "cheap," but they were less expensive than I've ever seen designer parfum so I figured what the hell, I'll pick out one bottle. Well, I had thee hardest time deciding between the new Dior J'adore stuff and this Angel stuff, so after sniffing until my head hurt, I bought them both. hahaha. I figured I will probably not be able to buy either of those parfums again (or at least, not for a longg time), so I might as well take advantage of the situation. The parfumerie was really all we had time for, so we went back to our "bagalo" (our rental moblie home) in Canet (just outside of Perpignan). We went back into Spain again on Thursday, but this time stayed just on the border. The town itself, Le Perthus, is actually half in France and half in Spain. It wasn't rainy this time, so we got to walk walk around more and do more shopping. I didn't make any other big purchases, though. Other than that and visiting the family (and the family visiting us), we didn't do much else. It was really just a chill week. I had a great time, though! I wish I would have gotten a little more of a tan, but I'll live. HAHAHAHA! That reminds me of a little story.

Hugo, Pierre, and I were sitting on a bench while Fanny and my host mom went to the ATM. Pierre goes, "My legs are like a polar bear with all the hairs." I missed the last part, and I assumed it was referring to the color, so I go, "Me too!" They both look at me and then at my legs and Hugo laaaaughs and then askes me if I understood what Pierre had said. I replied yes, and then told him that my legs were white like a polar bear. He cleared up the hairy part for me, and then I got it. haha. I got a pretty good laugh out of that, too. I dunno. It might be one of those 'you had to be there' moments, but we found it pretty funny.

A couple other quick things.. I tried mussels "à la crème" one night. They were good for a while, but I was served an entire pot full, and after a while they got kind of blahh. May 1st was the "Fête de travail" so no one had school and most people didn't work. Basically, it's a national vacation day. It's also the day when people give flowers called "mugets" to their friends. Fanny and Hugo brought me, my host mom, and Pierre some. They smell sooo good! ah! I wish they could have come with us on the train, but they probably wouldn't have lasted. We ended up dropping them off at Big Pierre's (my host mom's ex husband) house this morning. It was kind of a thank you for letting us use one of their cars all week.

I think that covers most everything, in short. I have school again tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. My host mom read my book and wrote up a summary for me, because I just couldn't read the damnn thing. My host mom said the vocab is really tough and it's written in an old style. I'm assuming that's kind of like the stuff we read in "Old English."

Anyway, it's late, I'm tired, and I have to get up early-ish.
à demain!
<33Miranda

Word of the day: Le sable = the sand