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.